Walter Dowman was a Sydney landscape painter who took up a parallel career as a commercial artist and cartoonist. One of his earliest published collections of illustrations, A Portfolio of Artist Lithographs (G. Gayfield, Sydney, NSW, 1917), depicted Sydney streetscapes. Some of Dowman's earliest known commercial work also dates from this period; he drew the sheet music illustrations for Budgery Feller Rag, composed by Jack Godfrey (Anglo-American Publishing Co., Sydney, NSW, ca.1914-1918).
Dowman rose to prominence as a political cartoonist and magazine illustrator throughout the 1920s, with his work appearing in the Labour Daily, The Bulletin and The Australian Woman's Mirror. He drew numerous book covers for the Currawong Publishing Company, ranging from pulp novels (see: Dead Man's Boots), to humorous travel narratives (see: A Yank Discovers Australia). Dowman's watercolour paintings were frequently exhibited in Sydney galleries throughout the 1930s and 1940s.
