Influenced by W. Eugene Smith, in whose workshops he participated, as well as the photographers of the Chicago School including Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan, Dave Heath worked mainly on the streets while living in Philadelphia, Chicago and New York, seeking to capture the fractures and growing unease in booming American post-war society, prior to the rise of the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War.

His seminal publication A Dialogue with Solitude was conceived in 1961 and finally published in 1965 after difficulty in finding a publisher, then reprinted in 2000 with a preface by Robert Frank. The book stunned with its emotional potency, thanks to Heath's sensitive translation of an intimate experience of the world, something lived and felt: tension in the city streets, between the constrained proximity of bodies and the isolation of individuals in the crowd, who fill his frame with their 'absent presence'. Heath photographed strangers of all class and generation; riding the train, watching other passers by or just staring pensively into the distance, lost in thought.

In his own words, Heath endeavoured to convey not a sense of futility and despair, but an acceptance of life's tragic aspects. He also captured glimmers of joy and tenderness that intersect the series like brilliant rays of sunshine.

The selection at Galerie Miranda focuses on Heath's tightly cropped portraits and duo compositions, with signature highly contrasted vintage artist prints, all made between 1959 and 1966.

Exhibition organised in friendly collaboration with Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto and Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Artist biography