The correct answer is D. Neither photographs nor artwork was acceptable for the contest.
Explanation:
In grammar, the subject and verb need to agree, which is known as subject-verb agreement. This means a singular subject needs to be followed by a singular verb form and vice-versa. In the case of the conjunction neither/nor that connects two nouns, if the two nouns are singular then the verb should be singular. Additionally, if there are one singular and one plural noun, the verb needs to agree with the noun that is closer to the verb.
This implies, in the case presented the correct sentence is "Neither photographs nor artwork was acceptable for the contest" because in this case, the closest noun is singular "artwork" and the verb is singular too "was".
