Richard Bowen

Richard Bowen was born on July 5, 1951. His specific birthplace is not confirmed in available sources. He was raised and educated in Palo Alto, California, graduated with honors from the University of California in 1973, later attended the graduate film program at San Francisco State University, and was a Cinematography Fellow at the American Film Institute, according to his 2021 obituary in British Cinematographer. He worked for roughly four decades as a Hollywood cinematographer and camera department professional, with credits across more than 20 feature films and hundreds of television commercials. Sources place his film credits variously as Deep Rising, Flags of Our Fathers, and The Kite Runner (per IMDb), and as Article 99, Pure Country, The Little Rascals, Major Payne, and Fair Game (per his American Society of Cinematographers obituary); the two lists are not contradictory and likely reflect different subsets of a long career.

Later in his career Bowen turned his camera to still photography, producing Mei Mei, a series of portraits of children living in China's state-run welfare institutions, made around 2000. He died suddenly on December 25, 2021, at age 70. The Mei Mei series was exhibited posthumously at The SPACE Art Gallery in Philadelphia from February 1 to March 31, 2022, in connection with the nonprofit OneSky.

Available sources do not include dated, attributed critical commentary from named critics in major art publications about this body of work. Descriptive coverage of the Mei Mei exhibition, including a 2022 post from Amie Potsic Art Advisory and program materials tied to the nonprofit OneSky, characterizes the photographs as portraits of children in Chinese state-run welfare institutions, but neither source offers an art critical assessment attributable to a named critic in a major outlet.

No public auction record has been identified for work under this name as of this profile's research date. The only confirmed market facing event located in available sources is the 2022 gallery exhibition of Mei Mei in Philadelphia, and the gallery's own materials describe this as a time limited exhibition rather than ongoing representation. No evidence of continuing gallery or estate representation, and no evidence of secondary market or auction activity, was found for this individual.

Given the absence of a confirmed catalogue raisonne, ongoing gallery or estate representation, or any public auction record, anyone considering a work attributed to Richard Bowen should treat the attribution with particular care and confirm it directly against documented exhibition history and biography before relying on it. Because several unrelated people share this name, the first step in any review should be to confirm which Richard Bowen a given work is actually attributed to, since the public record for this name is thin and easily conflated across individuals.