[Maquette for Contemporary Photographer Portfolio]

As Dave Heath explained to the Guggenheim Fellowship Committee in 1963, the stakes of his photographic project were high; he intended to represent no less than “the human condition in all its absurdity and in all its majesty.” With the support of photographic mentors including Robert Frank and W. Eugene Smith, Heath won $4,000 to support his practice. He debuted photographs from the first six months of his fellowship in a 1964 issue of Contemporary Photographer, for which he created this intriguing maquette. As the work reveals, Heath’s skills as a printmaker—honed over years of training, first as a drugstore photo-finisher and later as a darkroom technician—are matched by a sixth-sense for sequencing. Photo-stories in LIFE magazine first sparked his interest in photography, and this mock-up reflects an abiding attention to the rhythm and flow of images across a page. In twelve neatly-outlined layout designs, Heath balances incisive street photography and intimate portraiture. A rare storyboard drawing accompanies this set, showing an earlier draft of the image order. Here, Heath’s quick cartoons of the photographs hint at his compositional priorities. These sketched shapes—the furrowed brow of a pedestrian, the mark of a cruciform pendant, and the exaggerated eyes of a child—together form chance elements of an elusive, expansive humanity.