George Taylor Plowman was born on October 19, 1869 in Le Sueur, Minnesota, USA. Plowman studied art and architecture in Minneapolis, MN. From 1904 to 1909 he acted as superintendent of architecture for the University of California, at Berkeley. In 1910 he studied with Eric L. Pape (1870-1938) in Boston. He also studied art in Paris and with Sir Frank Short at the Royal College of Art in London from 1911 to 1913.

Though trained as an architect, Plowman returned to etching in 1911 at the age of 42. A fast study, Plowman authored Etchings and Other Graphic Arts, in 1914 and Manual of Etching, 1924 (Dodd Mead and Company). Plowman won a Bronze Medal at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco for his etchings.

He was a member of the Chicago Society of Etchers; the New York Society of Etchers; the Boston Society of Etchers; the Salmagundi Club in New York City; the Brooklyn Society of Etchers; the California Society of Etchers; the California Printmakers; the Society of American Etchers; and a Fellow at the Royal Society of the Arts.

George Plowman died on March 26, 1932 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.