Oliver Percy Bernard

Oliver Percy Bernard OBE MC (8 April 1881 – 15 April 1939) was an English architect, and scenic, graphic and industrial designer. He was instrumental in developing conservative Victorian British taste in a modernist European direction; much of his work is frequently characterised as art deco.

Born in Camberwell, London, Bernard was the son of Charles Bernard, (d.1894), a theatre manager, and his wife, Annie Allen, an actress. Oliver Bernard experienced an unhappy childhood in London and, on the death of his father in 1894, left for Manchester to take a job as a stage hand in a theatre. There, he took on his own education by reading John Locke, John Ruskin and others. He ultimately took a series of menial jobs at sea, before returning to London to take up scene painting with Walter Hann. In 1905, Bernard went to New York to work for Klaw & Erlanger before returning to London where he gained a job in Covent Garden. In 1912 he became the scenic director of the Quinlan Opera Company during their tour of Australia.

At the beginning of World War I in 1914, Bernard was rejected for active military service owing to deafness. He became frustrated at his inability to serve in the war, and by the conservatism of the London theatre. He travelled to the Americas where he stayed for a short period before returning to England on the RMS Lusitania in 1915; he survived its sinking. Whilst on board the ship he completed a series of sketches which were published in the Illustrated London News. In 1916, he was commissioned into the Royal Engineers as a camouflage officer, serving in France, Italy and Belgium, reaching the rank of captain. For his services, he was awarded the Military Cross and OBE, respectively.

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