Born, reared and living in Texas, Harvey began painting in the early 1960s and in 1965 won the New Masters Award in the American Artist Professional League Grand National Exhibition, New York, NY. In 1987, he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from his alma mater, North Texas State University, Denton, followed by a series of 1991 one-man shows in Washington, D.C., at the National Archives, the Treasury Department and the Smithsonian Institution during their exhibition ’The All American Horse.’