Harley Perkins was a member of the Boston Five - a group of modernist painters who created expressive landscapes with an emphasis on a fauvist palette. Other members of the Boston five were: Charles Sidney Hopkinson , Charles Hovey Pepper, Marion Monks Chase, and Carl Gordon Cutler. Beginning in 1920 and over the next 15 years, the group exhibited their works together at the Boston Art Club, Vose Galleries and the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard.

Harley Perkins was born in Bakersfield, Vermont and lived his adult life in the Brookline, Magnolia, and Boston, Massachusetts studying at the Brigham Academy and the Boston Museum School. Perkins exhibited at the Society for Independent Artists in 1918, the Whitney Museum of American Art 1926-50, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum, Vose Galleries ("Five Boston Artists" 1930), Doll & Richards Gallery, Boston among others.

Works by Perkins can be found in permanent collections including the Boston Museum of Fine Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, as well as a WPA mural in the Alabama State Building in Montgomery.

Harley Perkins held a position as Arts Editor of the Boston Transcript (1922-1928) and as Director of Exhibitions at the Boston Art Club (1923-28). He was the Massachusetts State Director of the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (1936-39) and the president of the Boston Society of Independent Artists from 1940 to 1954.

And among other contributions, Harley Perkins was a Radio Art Commentator and a contributor to The Arts: Pictures on Exhibit.