Harry Oliver

Who was Harry Oliver?

Harry Oliver was an American humorist, artist, and Academy Award nominated art director of films from the 1920s and 1930s. Besides his outstanding work in Hollywood, he is now best remembered for his humorous writings about the American Southwest, and his publication of the Desert Rat Scrap Book, an irregular broadsheet devoted to the Southwest. He was born in Hastings, Minnesota and died in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California.

He is known for his Hollywood work as art director on the films Seventh Heaven and Street Angel, for which he was nominated for the very first Academy Awards, as well as set design or art direction on the films Ben Hur, Sparrows, Scarface, Viva Villa!, Mark of the Vampire, and The Good Earth.