William Clift (photographer)

William Clift (born 1944, Boston, MA) is an American photographer known for his black-and-white imagery of landscapes and of architectural subjects.

Clift was born in Boston in 1944; his uncle was the actor Montgomery Clift.

Attending Dexter School, Brookline, MA, Clift took up photography when he was ten years old using a Polaroid camera, then to buy his own camera, a bakelite Kodak Brownie 'Hawkeye', and to equip his first darkroom, he spent summers caddying and finding golf balls and taking Coke bottles to recycle.

He attended Browne and Nichols High School Cambridge 1957-61.

He did no formal training in photography and spent only one year at Columbia University.

With Willem Nyland, Clift studied the Greek-Armenian mystic philosopher George Gurdjieff.

Clift's first instruction in photography was a workshop with Paul Caponigro in 1959, when he was fifteen.

He studied at Columbia University, N.Y. in 1962.

He has worked professionally since 1963, for six years (to 1971) operating under the business name Helios with Steve Gersh as his business partner in Cambridge, specialising in architectural photography.

He was a charter member of the Association of Heliographers (1963–65) with Carl Chiarenza, Walter Chappell, Paul Caponigro, Nicholas Dean, Paul Petricone, and Marie Cosindas.

His early projects included a commission for a 1970 series from the Massachusetts Council on the Arts to document the old Boston City Hall, the Hudson River Valley, and courthouses around the country.

Most of his work has been made in New Mexico, including Santa Fe where he has lived and worked since 1971, and of Mont Saint Michel in France, and St. Louis, MO.

Clift married Vida Chesnulis in 1971 and they and daughter Charis moved to Santa Fe that same year.

There, he worked freelance and produced his first portfolio with 108 original prints, limited to 12 copies.

The next year he was granted a National Endowment for the Arts Photographers Fellowship and in 1974, the year his second daughter Carola was born, a Guggenheim Fellowship.

From 1975-76 he undertook a project to photograph Beacon Hill in Boston, and worked extensively on Joseph Seagram's Bicentennial Project "Court House".

After 10 years at Harvard Vida taught at St. John's while Clift began documenting the landscape of the region, including La Bajada, Canyon de Chelly, and Shiprock.

In 1977 to 1984 he made portraits of American artist Georgia O'Keeffe and her assistant Juan Hamilton and also in 1984 returned to using the Polaroid camera in making portraits of his daughter for ''A Particular World.

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Traveling to Australia in 1978, he taught workshops in fine printing at Photographers' Gallery & Workshop.

Back in the USA he worked on a project called "American Images" funded by A.T. & T. which supported 20 American photographers, each to make 15 new photographs.

That year, 1978, his first son, William, was born.

A 1979 National Endowment for the Arts supported the publishing of "Court House", a portfolio of 6 prints, limited to 60 copies plus 5 artist's proofs, and in 1980 he was awarded a further Guggenheim Fellowship.

On a 1981-2 trip to France he made photographs of Mont-St. Michel, which were paired in a portfolio, printed over 1983, with the Shipwreck imagery.

Members of the Clift family were the subject of an exhibit at the Museum of the Southwest in Midland, TX, titled, "A Particular World: The Clift Family of Artist" from May 12-August 7, 2022.

The exhibition features the work of photographer William Clift, from his earliest Polaroids to his grand landscapes to his most recent iPhone photos, but also the work of his son, the sculptor Will Clift, and his daughter, visual artist Carola Clift.

The more private creations of daughter Charis and wife Vida are included as examples of how art can permeate one's daily life.

Clift lives in La Tierra and his studio-cum- gallery is at 203 E. Palace Ave. in the Sierra Vista-Hickox neighbourhood.

Clift is the recipient of two Guggenheim fellowships, two National Endowment for the Arts grants, and a Governor's Award for the Arts.

Since then, two of his books (2007 and 2012) were designed by Eleanor Caponigro.