[1][2] He has won awards such as the Wynne Trustees' Watercolour Prize, a Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship, and a State Library of Victoria Creative Fellowship.
After consulting art historians, conservators and Cennino Cennini's Renaissance handbook, Il libro dell'arte, Clinch began making his own paints and experimenting on small, custom-made gesso panels.
[1][11][13] Due to the laborious nature of tempera, in the early 2000s Clinch turned to lithography as a more efficient medium for modest, small-scale works.
His series Black and White depicts chess pieces arranged to create visual narratives referencing classical mythology and popular culture.
[16][17] Following these exhibitions, Clinch was commissioned to paint a classic Australian sports car, the Goggomobil Dart, with dozens of paper aeroplanes in flight.
[21] Despite his realist style, Clinch's landscapes are fictional capricci, composed through plein-air sketches of existing environments and purpose-built shadow models.
[citation needed] Fanfare for the Common Man, an urban landscape featuring a solo trombonist on a rooftop, was inspired by musician Aaron Copland's composition of the same name.
[1][15][23] In the words of art writer, David Thomas, "In his paintings and lithographs, Robert Clinch creates a fictional world more real than reality itself.