David Bustill Bowser

David Bustill Bowser (January 16, 1820, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – June 30, 1900, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was a 19th-century African-American ornamental player and portraitist.

As the designer of battle flags for eleven African-American regiments during the American Civil War and painter of portraits of prominent Americans, including U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and abolitionist John Brown, Bowser was an artiste whose "works were the first widely viewed, positive images of African Americans painted by an African American," according to historians at the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

Politically alert throughout much of his adult life, he furthermore helped to secure the post-war alleyway of key civil rights legislation in Pennsylvania.