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Bill Wittliff was born in 1940 in Taft, a small town in south Texas. Following his parents' divorce, he and his brother Jim moved with their mother to Gregory, Texas, where Mrs. Wittliff operated a small telephone office during World War II—experiences that inspired Wittliff's feature film "Raggedy Man." Later, after his mother remarried, the family relocated to a ranch in Blanco, a rural community of 700 in central Texas's hill country.
In 1964, shortly after graduating from the University of Texas, Wittliff and his wife Sally established The Encino Press, a book publishing company focused on regional works about Texas and the Southwest. Encino has since earned more than 100 awards for design and content excellence. The press operated from a 19th-century Victorian home in Austin, once the residence and writing place of O. Henry.
An accomplished photographer, Wittliff captured the life of the Mexican vaquero between 1969 and 1971. His photographs have been displayed in numerous galleries across the United States and Mexico, including the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, and the Texas Capitol. Representing the United States during its bicentennial year, his work was exhibited in Japan. Even after twenty years, the collection continues to tour as a traveling exhibit throughout the U.S. and Mexico, supported by the Institute of Texan Cultures.
At age 29, Wittliff was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters. He served as its president from 1974 to 1978 and remained on the Executive Council until 1990. In 1993, he was named a Fellow of the Institute. He is also a member of the historic Texas Philosophical Society, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, and served six years on the Executive Board of Trustees of Robert Redford's Sundance Institute.
In 1985, Bill and Sally Wittliff donated their lifelong collection of original manuscripts and books to establish the Southwestern Writers Collection at Southwest Texas State University. Since then, the collection has expanded significantly with support from donors nationwide. It includes original manuscripts by authors such as J. Frank Dobie, John Graves, Larry McMurtry, Walter Prescott Webb, Bud Shrake, Larry L. King, Horton Foote, Preston Jones, Sam Shepard, and Willie Nelson, among others. The collection also features paintings by regional artists including William Lester, Tom Lea, John Groth, Jerry Bywaters, Kermit Oliver, and Robert Wade. In 1996, the Wittliffs endowed the Wittliff Gallery of Southwestern & Mexican Photography, which houses works by Russell Lee, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Ansel Adams, Keith Carter, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lola Bravo, Laura Gilpin, Edward Weston, Graciela Iturbide, Edward Curtis, Nacho Lopez, Erwin E. Smith, Marco Antonio Cruz, Jim Bones, Paul Strand, Mariana Yampolsky, and more. Both collections are displayed in eight specially designed rooms and a large chambered gallery on the top floor of the Albert B. Alkek Library on the university campus.
The Wittliffs have two adult children and reside in Austin, Texas.
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