Clifford Rainey is a Northern Irish glass sculptor. He began his career as a linen damask designer and worked in William Ewarts linen manufacturers from 1965 to 1968. He later studied at Hornsey College of Art, the North East London Polytechnic School of Sculpture, where he specialised in glass sculpture, and the Royal College of Art from where he received an MA. Between 1973 and 1975 he ran his own glass studio in London. In 1975 he won a commission for a small sculpture to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II and in 1976 was commissioned by Sun Life Assurance to make a large glass sculpture in Bristol. He was a lecturer at the Royal College of Art from 1977 until 1984. Rainey is the Chair of the Glass Program at the California College of the Arts in Oakland, California, where he has taught since 1991.
