Smithsonian Photography Curator Plans Presentation at RIT

The chief caretaker for one of our country's most treasured photo collections is coming to Rochester Institute of Technology. Merry Foresta, senior curator of photography for the Smithsonian American Art Museum, formerly the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C., will share her insights as part of the Charles Arnold Lecture Series.

The event, 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 8, in the auditorium of the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Sciences on RIT's Henrietta campus, is free and open to the public.

Foresta became the museum's first photography curator in 1983. Since that time, the number of photographs in the museum's permanent collection has grown from 50 to more than 4,700. Her presentation, "By the Numbers," will address the magnitude of looking after so many historic images, as well as other aspects of caring for the Smithsonian's photo collection.

Foresta's exhibitions and accompanying catalogues include Perpetual Motif: The Art of Man Ray, Irving Penn Master Images, and Between Home and Heaven: Contemporary American Landscape Photography. Her last two exhibitions, Secrets of the Dark Chamber: The Art of the American Daguerreotype and American Photographs: The First Century, focused on 19th century American photography. She is currently working on an exhibition and book about American art between 1930 and 1950.

The Charles Arnold Lecture Series is sponsored by RIT's School of Photographic Arts and Sciences. For more information, call 475-2770.