Dave Heath, the subject of our new exhibition at The Nelson-Atkins Museum, was modern photography’s greatest poet of introspection and solitude. His photographic career was long and varied, from the late 1940s into the first decade of the 21st century. He is best known for his book A Dialogue with Solitude, published in 1965. He went on to work in a variety of other forms, including audio-visual programs, personal journals, color Polaroid work, and, beginning in 2001, digital color photography. He died on June 27, 2016, his 85th birthday.
Until now, Heath’s great achievement has been unjustly little known — a result of his reclusive personality and the relative rarity of his work. A smaller version of this exhibit was presented a year ago to considerable acclaim at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. With an added component — Heath’s color street work of the years 2001-2008 — our installation will be the largest survey of his career ever mounted. We take pride in the fact that this exhibition comes from our own resources — the Nelson holds the largest and most definitive collection in the country of the artist’s work.
The quality and originality of Heath’s vision easily justifies this kind of attention. While he inspired many younger artists, Heath’s achievement remains one of a kind. What was the nature of his creative process? How and why did he make the pictures he did? Given the title of Heath’s signature work, A Dialogue with Solitude, it is interesting to focus on the play between loneliness and community in a key period in his creative life.
Heath once said that photography gave him nothing less than “a way of entering the world.” Born in 1931, he was abandoned by both parents by the age of four and raised in foster homes and an orphanage in the Philadelphia area. He was haunted all his life by these early feelings of rejection and isolation. A natural “loner,” he was almost entirely self-taught in art and photography — he learned primarily from books and visits to art museums. After an unsatisfying year of study at the Philadelphia Museum School, Heath moved to Chicago in 1955. There, he worked in a commercial studio by day, while devoting every spare minute to his own work. He did this on his own, without the guidance of a mentor.
Heath came to full maturity as an artist after his move to New York City in early 1957. Knowing that he had spent enough time living off his own resources, Heath immersed himself in the city’s vibrant art scene. He studied work in museums and came to know many talented photographers, artists, writers and dancers.
The creative vitality of this environment drew out the best in him, tempering Heath’s penchant for isolation. He began to think about his A Dialogue with Solitude sequence in 1961 and used feedback from noted photographers such as W. Eugene Smith, Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, Diane Arbus and Edward Steichen to refine his concept. Heath may not have agreed with all their comments, but he took them seriously. The result, finally published in 1965, is now recognized as one of the most important photo-books of the era.
We celebrate the way that Heath transformed a subjective sense of loneliness and vulnerability into a broadly inclusive work of art. At the same time, the eloquence of his visual language — the expressive craft of his superb black-and-white prints — was unsurpassed by anyone else of his day. Heath had learned from the best, and was guided by the highest of artistic standards.
This process underscores the special achievement of his work. Heath found a common vocabulary for the most personal intuitions. A Dialogue with Solitude stemmed from a sense of personal isolation, but it was not conceived in artistic isolation. It balances the urgency of inner need with an encompassing sense of universality. Heath knew that angst, alone, is not art. To succeed as aesthetic communication, feeling must be given effective form. And, paradoxically perhaps, one must transcend the limitations of the self in order to create lasting art about inner experience. Ultimately, Heath’s power of self-expression came, in some real measure, from what he learned from others. Art mattered so deeply to him because he understood that it is always about connection.
With more than 650 prints, acquired over a period of nearly three decades, The Nelson-Atkins Collection has the largest institutional holding of Heath’s photographs in the U.S. The exhibition Multitude, Solitude: The Photographs of Dave Heath, accompanied by a publication of the same title, will be on view from Nov. 19, 2016 to Feb. 19, 2017.
–Keith F. Davis, Senior Curator of Photography
