Description: Copublished by Aperture and the Smithsonian Institution
Brief description: Art historian and author of numerous essays and articles on American art and photography, Merry A. Foresta, was the founding director of the Smithsonian Photography Initiative from 2000 to 2010. Prior to that, she was senior curator for photography at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Her publications include Perpetual Motif: The Art of Man Ray (1998), Between Home and Heaven: Contemporary American Landscape Photography (1992), Secrets of the Dark Chamber: The Art of the American Daguerreotype (1995), and At First Sight: Photography and the Smithsonian (2004).