Born in
Peoria, Illinois, Snyder graduated with a B.A. from the
University of Colorado in 1952, continuing to
Princeton University for an M.F.A.in 1955. There he studied under
Kurt Weitzmann and it was
Erwin Panofsky who suggested the
Early Netherlandish painter Geertgen tot Sint Jans as a thesis subject. Still at Princeton, Snyder completed this under Robert Koch in 1958, having had a
Fulbright fellowship for 1955–1957. He taught at the
University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, as an assistant professor from 1957, being promoted associate professor in 1962. In 1964 he moved to Bryn Mawr College, initially as an associate professor, but a full professor of art history in 1969. In 1985 he became Fairbank Professor of Humanities. While at Bryn Mawr he was also a visiting lecturer in art history at Princeton and
Johns Hopkins University. Awards included the A. Kingsley Porter Prize from the
College Art Association of America in 1960 for his paper on "The Early Haarlem School of Painting". In 1962–1963 he spent a year as a Berenson fellow at Harvard's
Villa I Tatti near Florence, on a second Fulbright. He received fellowships from the
National Endowment for the Humanities for 1972–1973 and 1985. ==Books==