Born in Burma, Heath lived primarily in London. In January 1939 he is first mentioned in attendance at the FORBES SCHOOL, though he had been attending since the previous year. He remained for four months in 1939, working in the Forbes studios, before going on to the Slade and  shortly thereafter was evacuated to Oxford.  In WWII he served in the RAF and was imprisoned in Germany. While a prisoner of war he met Terry FROST and gave him initial lessons in art. Returning to his art studies at the Slade from 1945-47, he travelled and visited St Ives in 1949 and again in 1951.  There he met Ben NICHOLSON and Barbara HEPWORTH and became more abstract in his own approach to his work.

In 1948 he had his first solo show in France, at Carcassone, and his first in Britain in 1953 at the Redfern. In that time he had moved from representational painting to an abstract style which became his own for the remainder of his life.

Aside from his painting, primarily his life was one of teaching, initially at the Bath Academy of Art, Corsham and then the University of Reading, Sussex University and ultimately at the Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education.  He died in France.