Bowers's first appearance on the American art scene is in Baltimore as an exhibitor of probably fanciful or imitative Italian Peasant and Subject from Monte-Christo--The Monk, Teaching Young Vampa to Read. Nothing further is recorded of him until 1854, when he begins a six-year period of conspicuous and prolific exhibition, which suggests the previous several years had been passed in developing his skills. He was resident in Philadelphia from 1854 to 1860, and not surprisingly, it was at the yearly exhibitions of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts that his work was seen in quantity; four to seven paintings each year, the majority of which were portraits, but from their titles it would seem Bowers essayed genre, landscape, and figure subjects. His first appearance in an Academy annual was in 1856, when he exhibited a single portrait. In 1857 he showed two works at the Washington (D. C.) Art Association; in 1859, when he did not contribute to the Pennsylvania Academy's exhibition, he was again represented at the National Academy and at the Washington Art Association. In 1860, he was gave his address as Baltimore when sending one portrait to the Pennsylvania Academy--his last appearance there--and yet, had three portraits and a genre subject in the National Academy exhibition that spring. At the end of the year, he contributed a landscape to the first exhibition of the Artists' Fund Society in New York.
It seems likely Bowers had come to New York sometime in the latter half of 1860: besides his participation in the Artists' Fund Society exhibition; McEntee, whose diploma portrait he was to execute, was elected to the Academy in the spring of 1860; and among his five paintings in the 1861 annual (when his address was in New York) was a portrait of Sanford Gifford, suggesting he had had time to form some valuable friendships. And it was in the spring of 1861 that he was elected an Associate of the Academy.
Bowers sent a landscape and a genre painting to the annual exhibition of the Troy, New York, Young Men's Association in 1861, but that is the last that is heard of him for four years. His qualifying portrait to confirm his election to the Academy due before the convening of the 1862 annual meeting was not received, and the consequently the election was voided. It is an easy speculation that the Civil War interrupted Bowers's career, and perhaps more severely than it did most of his colleagues, as his strong affiliations with Baltimore suggest his sympathies may have lain with the South.
Bowers was surely in Detroit, Michigan in 1865, when he signed, dated and located the work by which he is known today, a still life in the Karolik Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Detroit city directories record him in 1866 and 1867. However, in 1868 he was again living in Baltimore when he made his last recorded contribution to an exhibition. Of the two portraits Bowers showed in the Maryland Historical Society exhibition of that year one was the Gifford presumably done in New York in 1860 or early 1861, which at once suggests he had little or no current work to show, and that he valued both the association with, and portrait of the prominent landscape painter.
Bowers is known to have remained in Baltimore until 1870.
