Harry Bowden
1907–1965

Harry Bowden (1907–1965) was an abstract painter who lived and worked both in New York and California. He showed in both group and solo exhibitions in Manhattan and San Francisco and was a founding member of American Abstract Artists. He is known both for fully abstract and for representative works, but the latter predominate. He once said a painter should embrace many ideas, symbols, forms, tones, and colors and through metamorphosis make them into a new thing — a painting having a life of its own. Having taken up photography as a mid-career hobby, he became as well known for his photographs as for his easel works.