In the early 1960s Bowart moved to New York City to pursue his interest in painting, and there he met his first wife Linda Dugmore, daughter of abstract expressionist Edward Dugmore, and had his first son Wolfe.
He was raised in Enid, Oklahoma, and won a McMahon Scholarship in journalism to the University of Oklahoma. Walter Howard Bowart (– December 18, 2007) was an American leader in the counterculture movement of the 1960s, founder and editor of the first underground newspaper in New York City, the East Village Other, and author of the book Operation Mind Control.īorn Walter Howard Kirby in Omaha, Nebraska, Bowart was adopted as a newborn by Walter and Fenna Bowart.