Photographer and assemblage artist Harry Bowers was born on April 22, 1938, in Los Angeles, California. Before he pursued art, Bowers studied engineering physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received his M.A. in 1965. He received a BS in Engineering Physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1964 before turning to photography and completing an MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1974. He worked as an instructor at the San Francisco Art Institute and other universities in California before leaving the field in the early 1980s. Bowers then founded a number of successful companies that were early forerunners in digital printing technology and color calibration and for which he held four patents. He lost most of his negatives in 1990, but he rediscovered many of them in 2004 and returned to making art.

In addition to his fine arts career, Bowers taught and lectured throughout the U.S., including at the University of California Berkeley and the University of California Santa Cruz; the California College of Arts and Crafts (now the California College of the Arts), Oakland, California; the San Francisco Art Institute, California; the Univeristy of Michigan, Ann Arbor; the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh; and the School of Visual Arts, New York.

Harry Bowers died on April 15, 2024, in Staatsburg, New York.

Honors
Favorite Photographer award, Portfolio review Les Recontres D'Arles, Arles, France, 2008; Ruttenberg Foundation Arts Grant, 1984: Macintosh Grant, Apple Computers, 1984; National Endowment for the Arts' Photographer's Fellowship, 1978 and 1980; New Discovery, Time-Life Photography Year Book, inclusion of nine photographic prints, 1978; National Science Foundation Fellowship, 1965.

Solo Exhibitions
1985: Fuller Goldeen Gallery, San Francisco, California
1984: Museum of Photographic Art, San Diego, California
1983: Delahunty Gallery, Dallas, Texas
1982: Fuller Goldeen Gallery, San Francisco, California; Priebe Gallery, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh; The Arts Club of Chicago, Illinois
1981: The Photographer's Gallery, London, England
1980: Morgan Gallery, Shawnee Mission, Kansas; G. Ray Hawkins Gallery, Los Angeles, California; Thomas Segal Gallery, Boston, Massachetts; Hansen Fuller Goldeen Gallery, San Francisco
1979: Smith Andersen Gallery, Palo Alto, California;  University of Montana, Missoula
1978: Linda Farris Gallery, Seattle, Washington; Hansen Fuller Gallery, San Francisco
1976: Hansen Fuller Gallery, San Francisco
1973: Extension Gallery, University of California, San Francisco

Selected Group Exhibitions

2009: 30^th Anniversary Exhibition, Part 1, Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, California; "CHOUCHOU" 2008 Les Rencontres D'Arles, Farmani Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
2008:  New Directions, Photo Folio review Arles, The Grande Halle, Les Rencontres D'Arles Photographie, Arles, France.
1994: Forecast: Shifts in Direction, Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe
1991: de-persona, The Oakland Museum, California
1989: Media Talk, Security Pacific Gallery, Costa Mesa, California
1988: Metaphors: The image of clothing in contemporary art, Huntsville Museum of Art, Alabama
1987: Photography and Art: Interactions since 1946, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California, touring exhibition
1986: American Photography - A Selection, Welton Becket Associates; Los Angeles; Photography: A facet of modernism, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Photography from the  Museum Collection-Harry Bowers, John Divola, Palm Springs Desert Museum of Art, California, with lecture by Harry Bowers
1985: Extending the Perimeters of 20th Century Photography, SFMOMA; Light and Heavylight: Contemporary Shadow Use in the Visual Arts, Memorial Union Art Gallery, University of California Davis; Harry Bowers, Ten Photographs, Fuller-Goldeen Gallery, San Francisco
1985: Photographer's Portfolios, G.Ray Hawkins Gallery, Los Angeles, California; Signs of the Times: Some recurring motifs in 20th century photography, San Francisco Museum of Modern  Art; Anxious Interiors, Laguna Beach Museum of Art, California, touring exhibition
1984: Sexuality in Art and the Media, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Landscapes/Figures/Objects: Implied performance, California State University, Northridge; Arranged Image Photography, San Francisco Camerawork and Boise Gallery of Art, Idaho
1983: Facets of the Collection: The medium is photography, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
1982: Alternative Directions, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Color as Form: A history of color photography, International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House, Rochester, New York; California Color, The Photographer's Gallery, London, England
1981-'83: Object/Illusion/Reality, California State University, Fullerton  (This exhibit traveled worldwide under the auspices USICA, Washington D.C., until February 1983)
1981: Mather Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio
1980: Beyond Color, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
1979: Allan Frumkin Gallery, Chicago, Illinois; Eyes and Ears Foundation, San Francisco, California, feat. 10 X 20 ft. billboard; Dangling Dualities, Linda Farris Gallery, Seattle, Washington
1978: San Francisco Associates/Five Photographers, Optica Gallery, Center for Contemporary Art, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Some Twenty Odd Visions, The Blue Sky Gallery; Portland, Oregon, touring exhibition
1977: Photography with Painting, Silver Image Gallery, Seattle; Bay Area Innovators, Sacred Heart Gallery, Menlo Park, California; Bent Photography, California, USA; Australian Center for Photography, Paddington, Australia (touring exhibition; curator / participant)
1976: Invitational, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada; Friends of Photography, Carmel, California
1975: Edinburgh Summer Art Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland; Ohio Silver Gallery, Los Angeles, California; San Francisco Art Institute, California
1974: San Francisco Art Institute