Kingman was born in Loja, Ecuador on February 23, 1913. His father, Edward Kingman, had moved to Ecuador from Newton, Connecticut. Kingman was the elder brother of journalist Nicolás Kingman Riofrío.

People from the United States first became acquainted with Kingman’s art in 1939, when he assisted Camilo Egas with the paintings and decorations for the Ecuadorian Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair.

For a period of twenty years, Eduardo Kingman held the post of principal professor at Quito’s Escuela de Bellas Artes (School of Fine Arts) as well as Director of the Museo de Arte Colonial de Quito. In 1940, Kingman founded the Caspicara Gallery in Quito. At this time and later his original prints and paintings were exhibited internationally in such cities as Paris, Washington, San Francisco, Mexico City, Caracas and Bogotá. Near the end of his career, Kingman was honored with a one-man exhibition of his art at the United Nations, New York.

He died in Quito, Ecuador in 1998. Two of his paintings were stolen from the Posada de las Artes Kingman Museum in 2003 but were safely recovered.