Well known as an Ernest Hemingway lookalike, who incidentally has placed second in the annual Florida Keys contest that chooses white bearded portly men resembling the famous author, Clifford began painting a little over 10 years ago. He had ignored a lifelong interest in art until nudged into the creative expression of painting by Louisiana watercolorist Henrietta Joseph. Taking inspiration from the works of Winslow Homer and Monet, Clifford primarily works in oil. He uses his sense of color to portray Louisiana landscapes, particularly plantations homes that have been lost to time as well as a variety of water subjects. Clifford has several paintings in the Coast Guard Art Collection including one which hangs in the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida. Local Baton Rouge gallery Acadian Frame and Art also carries his work.

Top Photo: Belle Grove Plantation, circa 1950, oil on canvas
Located near the town of White Castle, Belle Grove was the largest plantation home in Louisiana, and arguably the United States, when it was commissioned to be built by John Andrews in the late 1840s. Designed by architect Henry Howard, Belle Grove was an asymmetrical blended Greek revival house with Italianate decorations. The home’s upper stories were of beautiful pink plastered brick. Intricately carved Corinthian capitals of solid cypress over six feet high supported a large entablature. Sugar crop failure led to Belle Grove’s sale after the Civil War and its eventual abandonment in the 1920s. The structure was destroyed by fire in the early 1950s and its ruins razed several years later. 

Photo to the right: Pigeonniere of Uncle Sam, circa 1920, oil on canvas
Uncle Sam was the most extensive, best executed, and perhaps the most beautiful antebellum plantation complex in Louisiana. Located in Convent, the original compound consisted of 46 buildings in all, including the Greek revival main house, two garconnieres, plantation office, and kitchen. Two pigeonnieres, rising 35 feet from ground to finial, flanked the main house. The plantation site also included a sugar mill, black-smithy, stables, hospital commissary, and slave quarters. The complex was razed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1940 because of encroachment on the property by the Mississippi River and the need for a levee.