Washington Square, New York City

Date

1958; printed 1962

Creator

David Heath’s parents abandoned him when he was four years old, and he grew up in a series of foster homes and an orphanage as a ward of the state. One day he saw a photo essay in Life magazine about a troubled boy much like him. Heath realized he could use photography to make sense of his own life. He began walking the streets with a camera, looking for images that resonated with his own dark childhood feelings, as well as his adult fears. He accumulated hundreds of photographs and selected eighty-two prints to publish as A Dialogue with Solitude in 1965. from Snite Museum of Art, Selected Works: Snite Museum of Art (Notre Dame, 2005)