His father was Bill Oliphant (5 January 1880 - 14 June 1951), his mother Ethel Maude Chipperfield (8 July 1890 - c. October 1967).
He stayed with his parents in Grangemouth and the Falkirk Herald reported that the commute to Glasgow, his studies and his work left him little time to paint.
[4] He won the Chalmers-Jervise Prize of 1934 at the Royal Scottish Academy exhibition, with an address of 27 Marshall Street in Grangemouth.
[4] The Falkirk Herald on reporting the Guthrie Award win described the circumstances of Oliphant's limited time constraints:[4] WORK DONE AT HOME.
To complete his picture Mr Oliphant had to dash from his work last Tuesday to Edinburgh, and on arriving at the Academy he had only three-quarters of an hour in which varnish his contribution.
[3] He illustrated Richard Armstrong's boy's novel Sea Change, when it was serialised for the comic Ranger; and also the series 'Sink the Scharnhorst!'