This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| Elected a member of the National Academy of Design in 1861 and a painter of portraits, genre and still life paintings, Edward Bowers was an artist about whom there is minimal information including birth and death places. His painting, Fruit and Wine, in the Boston Museum and dated 1865, is his most famous work.
As early as 1822, Bowers was known to have been in Baltimore where he was doing "imitative" paintings such as Italian Peasant, The Monk and Teaching Young Vampa to Read. From 1854 to 1860, he lived in Philadelphia and exhibiting at the Pennsylvania Academy, showed work that showed much improved skill and originality from his earlier painting. The majority were portraits but he also did figure, genre and landscape subjects.
In 1856, he first exhibited in the National Academy of Design, and the next year was exhibiting with the Washington DC Art Association. By 1860, he was showing his address as Baltimore, but indicating time spent in New York City, he sent a landscape to the Artists' Fund Society fundraiser, and in 1861 was elected an Associate Member of the National Academy of Design. However, his election was voided because he failed to send a qualifying portrait.
"Because his strong ties with Baltimore suggest that Bowers's sympathies may have lain with the South, it is reasonable to speculate that the Civil War interrupted Bowers's career---perhaps more severely than it did those of most of his colleagues." (61)
In 1865, he was in Detroit, where he dated and named the place of origin of his painting, Fruit and Wine. His name appeared in the City Directories for 1866 and 1867, but by 1868, he was back in Baltimore where he exhibited with the Maryland Historical Society. He is known to have stayed there until 1870, but after that, little information about him seems available.
Source:
David Dearinger, Editor, Painting and Sculpture in the Collection of The National Academy of Design, Volume One., pp. 61-62.
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