After attending the École des Beaux-Arts in Nancy, Ernest Bussière entered the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1882. In 1889, he returned to Nancy and began a dual career. As a sculptor, he created many monuments dedicated to the great men of Nancy (Grandville, 1893; Gridel, 1893; Gringore, 1894; Bleicher, 1903; Loritz, 1904; Bichat, 1909). He is also the author of several funerary sculptures in the Préville cemetery.

As a decorator, he was one of Nancy's main collaborators with the Keller et Guérin earthenware factory (Lunéville), to which he supplied numerous models of plant-inspired ceramics with metallic reflections. These early works were first exhibited in 1895 at the Beaux-Arts exhibition in Remiremont and then in Nancy. Some of his shapes were translated into glass by Daum and presented at the 1900 Universal Exhibition. In the 1920s, several of Bussière's vegetal ceramics were reissued by the Lunéville factory.

He was also a portrait artist, creating medallions, plaques and busts of local personalities.

Alongside his work as a statuary, Ernest Bussière taught sculpture and modelling at the École des Beaux-Arts in Nancy from 1889. He was a professor there until his death in 1913.

In Nancy, you can still see the sculpted pediment of the Hôtel des Postes, the monuments to Bichat and Grandville (only the central figures - the medallions and sculptures on the base were melted down during the Second World War), and the monuments to Virginie Mauvais (1893), Blosse (1899) and Friot (1905), among others, in the Préville cemetery.

He was a member of the École de Nancy's steering committee from 1901.