Edgar Melville Ward was an American genre painter.
Ward was born in Urbana, Ohio. His elder brother was the sculptor, John Quincy Adams Ward. He studied at the National Academy of Design in New York City and in Paris under Cabanel. In 1883 he became a member of the Institut de France and was made a professor there. His paintings which are soundly realistic in execution, include Breton Washwomen (1876); The Sabot Maker (1878); The Collar Shop and The Quilting Party (1892); and The Coppersmith (Metropolitan Museum, New York).