Harry Payne commenced his artistic career in the office of a merchant in Mincing Lane.
By the 1880s he had become a prolific artist and illustrator, selling his artwork to the Prince of Wales and other members of the royal family.
In 1897 Payne worked on books and illustrations for the Diamond Jubilee and the Prince and Princess of Wales.
With his brother Arthur Payne he produced many series of oilette postcards for Raphael Tuck & Sons and also did extensive work for Gale and Polden producing illustrations for their postcard series along with other military artists including Edgar Alfred Holloway, John McNeill, and Ernest Ibbetson.
In 1898, he and his brother Arthur created a series of chromolithographic and lithographic illustrations for an edition of Robert Browning's The Pied Piper of Hamelin.