Clifford Mitchell
Clifford Mitchell was an architect and artist. Born in Alabama, he attended Tuskegee Institute, where he received his BS in architecture in 1949. He moved to Hartford in the 1950s to pursue his BFA. He graduated cum laude from the the Hartford Art School in 1958. As a student, he was already beginning to show promise as an artist, winning the Ruth Cheney Goodwin Memorial Award for outstanding work in design and painting in 1957. In addition, Mitchell began his career as an architect when he was still a student, working as a designer-draftsman for the firm Dubin-Mindell-Bloom, Associates while he received his BFA. From 1959-1962, he was a designer at Alfred Reinhardt, Architect, before becoming an architect at Golden-Thornton-La Bau Inc.
During his career as an architect, Mitchell never strayed far from art. He began winning prizes at regional art exhibitions in 1959, the same year he had what is believed to be his first one-man show, in Springfield, Massachusetts. He had at least 15 one-man shows over the course of his career, and continued to win awards and exhibit at national and regional shows. His art work is in many public, private and corporate collections in Connecticut and across the country. The New Britain Museum of American Art, the Stamford Museum & Nature Center and the Mattatuck Museum are just a few of the institutions that have Mitchell's work in their collections.