Herz left New York in 1941 to pursue graduate studies under Austin Warren at the University of Iowa, but returned shortly thereafter to resume his study of poetry under the guidance of Siegel, later stating that he "learned more about poetry from Eli Siegel [in] New York than I ever learned in Iowa from anyone, including Austin Warren."

Friends and colleagues of Herz included André Kertész, Dorothea Lange, Wynn Bullock, Lou Bernstein, Norman Rothschild, Leonora Carrington, Kurt Seligmann, and Chaim Koppelman.

In 1965, Herz wrote the introduction to What's There: An Aesthetic Realism Art Inquiry, a text which chronicled an interview between Eli Siegel and various artists, including Lou Bernstein, Chaim Koppelman, Dorothy Koppelman, Louis Dienes, Anne Fielding, Warren Rhodes, and Martha Baird.

Notable exhibitions include a 1961 solo photography show, Color Statement, at the Terrain Gallery in New York City, and an exhibition of Herz's poetic collaborative with Surrealist artist Kurt Seligmann, Impossible Landscapes of the Mind, at the Hirschl and Adler Galleries in 1999.

[4] In 1994, images from Herz's With the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, August 28, 1963: Impressions of America on Its Way were shown in exhibition at the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York.