Jack Clift

Artist Bio Artist Work

Jack Clift has created a signature style utilizing corrugated metal. In 1978, while on a trip to the south to interview folk artists, he was inspired by their use of all materials, and started to use tin as a medium, rather than traditional canvas. Clift shaped tin in many unique ways and created multi sectioned paintings, connected with hinges or nails. In 1999, the exhibit “Jack Clift: Artist, Friend, Teacher” a 20 year retrospective of his works, was organized by the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and traveled to the Fuller Museum of Art.

Clift was born in Taunton, MA in 1925. He attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which he graduated from in 1952. Directly after graduating, he assumed a teaching position at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, where he then taught for 36 years. Jack Clift passed away in July, 1999 at the age of 73.

Selected Solo Exhibitions 

1996 Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA

1994 Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA

1991 Chapel Gallery, Newton, MA

1989 Image Gallery, Sarasota, FL

1988 Stavaridis Gallery, Boston, MA

1986 Stavaridis Gallery, Boston, MA

1985 Hadler-Rodriguez Gallery, Housten, TX

1984 Hadler-Rodriguez Gallery, New York, NY

1983 Stavaridis Gallery, Boston, MA

1983 Hadler-Rodriguez Gallery, New York, NY

1982 Cutler-Stavaridis Gallery, Boston, MA

1980 Cutler-Stavaridis Gallery, Boston, MA

1970 Fuller Museum, Brockton, MA

1960, Mirski Gallery, Boston, MA

1955 DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA

Selected Group Exhibitions

1994 Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA

1993 Fuler Museum Triennial, Brockton, MA

1988 Starr Gallery, Brossman Campus, Newton Centre, MA

1987 Foundry Gallery, Washington, DC

1987 American Craft Museum, Associates Benefit, New York, NY

1986 Camino Real Gallery, Boca Raton, FL

1985 Boston Arts Festival, Special Invitational Exhibit

1982 Museum of Art, R.I.S.D., Providence, RI

1980 DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, “Three Decades,”Lincoln, MA

1969 Fuller Museum, Brockton, MA

1953 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

1951 Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

Awards

1978 Ford Grant to Document Current Fold Artists

1960 Graduate Fellowship for Study Abroad

1953 Clarissa Bartlett Fellowship 

Bibliography

1994 Boston Herald “Artists Draw on the Past for Influence”

1994 Boston Globe “Sensual Landscapes and Signs of Nature”

1994 Art in New England

1994 Art in America “Jack Clift at Bernard Toale”

1991 Art in New England “Jack Clift: Pathways”

1991 Boston Globe “Perspectives”

1986 Rhode Island Review “Four Dreamers”

1986 Art in America “Jack Clift at Stavaridis”

1982 Metals; Cast-Cut-Coiled, Museum of Art, R.I.S.D., Providence, RI

1981 Boston Magazine “Twelve Artists on the Way Up”

1980 Boston Globe “DeCordova’s Self Portraits”

1977 Art in Transition: A Century of the Museum School, Museum of Fine Arts

1970 -74 New York Times, Images for the Op-Ed page

1971 The Indignant Years – Art and Articles from the Op-Ed Page, New York Times

1963 -68 Fortune Magazine –pictorial art

1956 Graphics Annual 1956-57

Selected Collections

Smithsonian Museum, Washington, DC

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA

Standard Oil Company

Sun Chemicals Company

Fortune Magazine

Alcan Aluminum

Boston University

Degree Associates

Fuller Museum, Brockton, MA

Fidelity Investments, Boston, MA