Cliff Whittaker is a photographic artist who specializes in mid-19th century-style impressionist images.  He has studied and been influenced by the French Impressionist works of artists such as Manet, Pissaro, Monet, Ronoir, Degas, Van Gogh and others of that period.  His work is often mistaken initially as oil on canvas painting.

            Cliff has concentrated most of his current work in downtown Clarksville.  He feels that this work is a celebration of the renaissance of the downtown area and his impressionist style is more appropriate for that type of work.  He says that it is more important to capture emotion in an image that it is to capture the details of the scene.

            His work involves every-day activities along Franklin Street and inside businesses such as Hodgepodge, Blondie’s, Front Page Deli and Blackhorse Pub.  Cliff says that his art is more like that of a contemporary historian in that his candid images show people and places as they are in that instant.  And, maybe some time in the future people will look back at those images and be reminded of their “ impression of the good ol’ days.”

            Cliff has another love in photography and that involves landscape scenes in both color and black and white.  When he isn’t haunting Franklin Street he can usually be found somewhere in the Clarksville area photographing nature.