The Photographs of Homer Page: The Guggenheim Year: New York, 1949-50

The work of American photographer Dave Heath (b. 1931) stuns with its emotional potency. Exploring themes of loneliness and alienation in modern society, Heathandrsquo;s photographs depict strangers riding the train, watching a Thanksgiving parade, staring pensively at their dining room table, or kissing on the side of a street. Entirely self-taught, Heath stretches the boundaries of the medium and explores the potential of the photo-narrativeandmdash;through handmade book maquettes, innovative multimedia slide presentations, and other photographic experimentations.

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This is the first comprehensive survey of Heathandrsquo;s deeply personal work, focusing on his astounding contributions to black-and-white photography. These images span the first 20 years of his career, 1949 to 1969, and many of them are previously unpublished. Filling a major gap in scholarship, the catalogue surveys the most groundbreaking facets of Heathandrsquo;s creative work and highlights its historical importance. Heathandrsquo;s art is ripe for rediscovery, and this book reaffirms his status as a key figure in 20th-century American photography.

This stunning volume represents a major photo-historical discovery: it is the first book on Homer Page (1918-1985), a brilliant but overlooked photographer active in the late 1940s and 50s. It focuses on his previously unpublished photographs of New York taken while a Guggenheim Fellow from 1949 to 1950. First recognized by Ansel Adams in 1944, California-born Page exhibited in a major show of young artists at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1946. Four years later, he was invited to participate in MoMA's seminal photography symposium, alongside 10 other prominent photographers, including Walker Evans, Irving Penn, and Aaron Siskind.

In photographs that echo those of Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Robert Frank, Page uniquely synthesized documentary and artistic concerns. His work as a Guggenheim Fellow--which depicts pedestrians in motion, friends and family members conversing, commuters, children playing, political rallies and protests, and isolated figures resting and watching--offers a fascinating look at New York during the late 1940s and represents the culmination of Page's most important work.

The Photographs of Homer Page features a plate section of these compelling and often poignant images together with texts by the artist, a bibliography, and an essay by noted scholar Keith F. Davis examining Page's life and career--

including his connections with Lange, Nancy and Beaumont Newhall, and Edouard Steichen.

This definitive survey of Dave Heathandrsquo;s deeply personal work of the 1950s and 1960s affirms his status as a key figure in 20th-century American photography.