A resident primarily of Chicago, Harry Wagoner earned a distinguished reputation as a painter of California and Arizona desert landscapes.

He was born in Rochester, Indiana, studied art with Homer Pollock and then had further study in Paris, Italy, and Chicago. In 1918, he was in El Paso, Texas for a year operating an art gallery representing artists of Santa Fe, Taos and El Paso. The next year he moved to Altadena, California, and remained there until 1934, after which he moved several times including to Palm Springs, Laguna Beach, Chicago and Phoenix where he died on April 9, 1950.

He had traveled to Arizona by 1930, and was sketching desert and mountain landscapes. Titles of some of those paintings include And the Desert Shall Blossom, and The Apache Stronghold.

He was a member of the Hoosier Salon, the Pasadena Society of Painters, and the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Engravers.