In his storied career, Gordon Baer has photographed the Beatles, Pete Rose, Larry Flynt and numerous other recognizable, iconic subjects. But, it is Baer’s photographs of the unknowns that are the heart of his great body of work.

The Kennedy Heights Art Center is displaying 62 of Baer’s photos, most black and white, pre-digital, many from the 1960s-1980s. On my weekday visit, I was alone in the Center and able to spend some time with the various series of photos displayed.

What may catch your eye at first are the Beatles pictures, Pete Rose in his batting stance (Warhol used Baer’s photos to help create his Rose painting and prints) or Larry Flynt at his height as porno-provocateur. Soon, though, the many other Images begin to grab your attention. Often they are displayed in series.

One such series, “Teenage Girls Series” from 1967, shows Baer’s humanity, his ability to connect with subjects and make them comfortable in their surroundings. The girls are seen in their disheveled bedrooms, their angst and less-fortunate circumstances permeating the scenes with sadness. The least hopeful of these shows a girl with a gun to her head, posing I imagine, but still… The most hopeful shows a pregnant teen, her boyfriend’s hand on her rounded belly, both smiling brightly.

Another series, and maybe Gordon Baer’s most recognized, is from his great 1981 book, “Viet Nam: The Battle Comes Home”, which documents the pain and dislocation of the returning Vets. A small room in the Center is given to this display of these poignant pictures. Again, you can see Gordon’s ability to connect with the people. They are unafraid to reveal themselves and their pain. “Gordon sees with his eyes and with his heart”, Bill Carner of the University of Louisville Library said of Baer on the occasion of  2009 exhibit there.

In the 1980s the New York Times ran a story on strip mining, and a striking photo in the exhibit from this story shows a distraught couple from behind as they stare at the crumbling, sliding hillside that had held their son’s grave. Exhibit curator Sarah Siegrist says, “His images speak to the very essence of what it is to be Human.” This photo and many others here demonstrate this.

The Kennedy Heights Art Center, located in a rambling old house on Montgomery Road, has done a great service, bringing to light these rarely seen beautiful documents of the human experience shot by a man with a big heart and a great eye.