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Bernie Cleff Photograph Collection
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Held at: University of Pennsylvania: University Archives and Records Center [Contact Us]3401 Market Street, Suite 210, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the University of Pennsylvania: University Archives and Records Center. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Bernie Cleff (1927- ) was a freelance photographer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he attended the Philadelphia College of Art (now called the University of the Arts) where he studied advertising before switching to photography; he graduated in 1950.
Cleff specialized in aerial, architectural, corporate, and sculpture photography. His work has appeared in periodicals such as Business Week, Cosmopolitan, Forbes, Fortune, National Sculpture Review, Sports Illustrated, Venture, and The New York Times Sunday Magazine. His work has also appeared in the books The Cape May Handbook, Historic Rittenhouse: A Philadelphia Neighborhood, Daniel Chester French: An American Sculptor (Cleff's photographs taken for this book are now among the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Photograph Archives), and the survey of sculpture in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park Sculpture of a City: Philadelphia's Treasures in Bronze and Stone.
A life member of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), Cleff was one of the founding members of its Philadelphia chapter. Bernie Cleff is now retired.
The Bernie Cleff Photograph Collections contains prints and negatives Cleff took of University of Pennsylvania professor Dr. Loren Corey Eiseley (1907-1977), novelist Conrad M. Richter (1890-1968), and Temple University professor Joseph Wolpe (1915-1997).
The Bernie Cleff Photograph Collection is arranged alphabetically.
The Bernie Cleff Photograph Collection was donated to the University Achives by Bernie Cleff in October 2008 (accession number 2014:054).
- Publisher
- University of Pennsylvania: University Archives and Records Center
- Finding Aid Author
- Timothy H. Horning
- Finding Aid Date
- January 2015
- Access Restrictions
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Access to collections is granted in accordance with the Protocols for the University Archives and Records Center.