Fern Nesson Works

Fern L. Nesson is a graduate of the Harvard Law School and received an MA in American History from Brandeis and an M.F.A in Photography from the Maine Media College. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She practiced law in Boston for twenty years and subsequently taught American History and Mathematics at the Cambridge School of Weston and the Commonwealth School in Boston. Nesson wrote Great Waters: A History of Boston’s Water Supply (1982), Signet of Eternity (2017) and Word (2020) and she has published numerous books of her photography including, Tilt! (2023). She is currently working on a combined history and photography book on the WPA’s American Guide Series. 

Nesson's photographs have been shown in solo shows internationally at the Politecnico University in Torino, Italy, Les Rencontres de la Photographie in Arles, France, Ph21 Gallery in Budapest, Hungary, and at The University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica. 

In the United States, Nesson has had solo exhibitions at the Griffin Museum of Photography,  the MIT Museum, The MetaLab at Harvard, the Beacon Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts, the Pascal Gallery in Rockport, Maine, and at Through This Lens Gallery in Durham, NC. 

Additionally, her work has been selected for numerous juried exhibitions in the U.S., Barcelona, Rome and Budapest. Her photobooks, Signet of Eternity and WORD, won the 10th and the 12th Annual Photobooks Award from the Davis-Orton Gallery. Fern is a contributing editor of FranceToday.com and BonjourParis.com where her cultural/photo essays appear regularly as well as the author of a regular column for The LivingNewDeal.com entitled: “On the Road: Travels with the WPA State Guides.” Collections of her photographs may be found on her website: fernlnesson.com