Harry Mayerovitch

Harry Mayerovitch (April 16, 1910 – April 16, 2004), was a Canadian architect, artist, illustrator, author and cartoonist.

Mayerovitch was born in Montreal on April 16, 1910, to Romanian-Jewish parents from the region of Bessarabia. After completing a Bachelor of Arts at McGill University, he earned his degree in architecture in 1933.

Architecture projects were put on hold when Canada entered World War II, so Mayerovitch turned his attention to painting, with one painting, a war-themed work entitled Home Front, exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. This work garnered praise from Ottawa Journal critic Robert Ayer, which in turn caught the attention of National Film Board of Canada (NFB) founder John Grierson, who appointed Mayerovitch artistic director of the NFB's Wartime Information Board's Graphic Arts Division—even though Mayerovitch had never designed posters before. From 1942 to 1944, Mayerovitch produced World War II propaganda posters, using the artist's signature "Mayo."

His final published work before his death on his 94th birthday in 2004 was Way to Go, a collection of wordless cartoons published that same year by Drawn & Quarterly Press.