Very few details are found on the painter and printmaker Clifford Smith, despite a prolific career and several works in noted collections such as the National Gallery of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and the Norton Simon Museum. Smith was born in 1936 and was an integral part of the Tamarind Lithography Workshop, where he was appointed Studio Manager in 1965 and was later the Director of Education. In addition to his own original prints, he printed the works of several leading American artists, such as Ruth Asawa, Frank Lobdell, Joseph Albers, and Robert Cremean, who came through the important workshop in the 1960s and '70s.