Henry Cliffe was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire and studied at the local art school. During World War II he served in the army in and met the artist William Scott whilst on secondment in Wales. In 1946 Cliffe enrolled as student at Bath Academy of Art, where he later became a member of staff alongside Peter Lanyon, Terry Frost, Bryan Winter, Howard Hodgkin and Adrian Heath. running the lithography studio from 1950 until his retirement in 1981.
He exhibited at British Pavilion at 1954 Venice Biennale with Ben Nicholson, Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud. H

Cliffe was a regular exhibitor in international print exhibitions and exhibited at the British Pavilion at 1954 Venice Biennale alongside Ben Nicholson, Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud. In 1956 he was given a one man show by The Redfern Gallery and in 1960 he was one of five artists shown in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale: Victor Pasmore, Eduardo Paolozzi, Merlyn Evans and Geoffrey Clark.

His early works seem to be derived from both Surrealism and the neo-romantic English landscape school of the 1940s. However, throughout the 1950s Cliffe’s work became more concerned with the relationship between the human figure and the landscape.