SELECTIONS > AMERICAN

DAVE HEATH (1931 – 2016)
Dave Heath, in his emotionally charged photographs and curated slide shows, often explores alienation. His work draws loosely from his own personal experiences as an orphan and as an American combat soldier in the Korean War.

Heath briefly studied art at the Philadelphia College of Art and the Institute of Design in Chicago, supporting himself as an assistant to commercial photographers. By 1959, Heath was in New York where he studied with the ground-breaking photojournalist W. Eugene Smith. His subsequent work has been highly influenced by Smith's humanistic tone and emphasis on the photographic narrative.

Dave Heath first came to prominence with the 1963 exhibition (and 1965 publication) A Dialogue with Solitude, a moving series of black and white images addressing contemporary isolation. Heath subsequently won two Guggenheim Fellowships.

His photographs are represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House (Rochester, NY), and the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, among other institutions.