Dave Heath

The photographer

The Collected Image, Evanston, Illinois, as agent, to the present owner, 1997

Dave Heath, Chicago (Self-published maquette, 1956), p. 30

'A Dialogue with Solitude by Dave Heath,' Infinity: American Society of Magazine Photographers, vol. XI, no. 4, April 1962, p. 6

Dave Heath, A Dialogue with Solitude (Culpeper, Virginia, 1965), unpaginated

Keith F. Davis, Multitude, Solitude: The Photographs of Dave Heath (New Haven, 2015), pl. 58

"Mother whose heart hung humble as a button

On the bright splendid shroud of your son,

Do not weep,

War is kind." —Stephen Crane

This photograph is one of a group of images from which Heath selected the contents of his seminal 1965 volume, A Dialogue with Solitude. Heath began work on A Dialogue with Solitude in 1961 and would continue reworking its contents and sequencing over the next four years. The images depict a society dealing with postwar tension and societal unease, themes that continue to resonate more than five decades later.

Prints of any of Heath's photographs are scarce. A Dialogue with Solitude quickly went out-of-print and remains highly sought-after by photobook collectors. A modern edition was re-issued in 2000 by Lumiere Press.