Washington Square, Dave Heath, 1960

gelatin silver print, h 249mm × w 170mm More details
© Dave Heath/Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Some photographs are powerful because they so poignantly represent, symbolize or encapsulate a time and place. They are icons of their own day, and record the spirit of the times like a seismograph. This is what this photograph of a crouching boy in Washington Square does. The photographer Dave Heath became known with A Dialogue with Solitude (1965), his photo book exploring poverty and loneliness, in which he wrote: ‘I have tried to touch upon this malaise d'age.’