Peter Snow, son of
Sir Frederick Snow, was educated at
Bloxham School in
Oxfordshire, where he showed an early talent for painting and was involved in designing sets for school plays. In 1946, he studied briefly at
Goldsmiths College and worked as a journalist on the South London Press before doing his national service with the
Royal Engineers in the
Middle East. Following his time in the army he gained a scholarship to the Slade, studying until 1953 and joining the staff in 1957. He was head of theatre design, succeeding
Robert Medley. Snow started working in theatre in 1951, when he designed
Love's Labour's Lost for the Southwark Shakespeare Festival. In 1954, Snow worked alongside
Joan Littlewood at her Theatre Workshop in
Stratford East. Two of his most admired designs for Littlewood were for a revival of John Marston's
The Dutch Courtesan. Other early theatre work included designs for
Lennox Berkeley's one-act opera A Dinner Engagement at the
Aldeburgh Festival in 1954,
Frederick Ashton's ballet Variations on a Theme by Purcell at the
Royal Opera House in 1955, and
Noël Coward's South Sea Bubble, at the Lyric Theatre in 1956. In 1955, Snow designed the British premiere of
Samuel Beckett's
Waiting for Godot, directed by
Peter Hall at the Arts Theatre, where he also designed the costumes. Snow’s first solo exhibition as a painter was at the Prospect Gallery in London in 1951, followed by a show at the Beaux Arts in 1957. Following a trip to
New York City in 1970, Snow held some of his most vivid painting and two multi-media entertainments, Reflections. These were held at Oval House in south
London in 1971 and at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1975. Snow designed a
BBC film about
Rex Whistler in 1978 and continued to exhibit regularly at the Beaux Arts and, after it closed down, the Piccadilly and Albemarle galleries. His occasional portraits included studies of Joan Littlewood and
Richard Eyre, the film and theatre directors, which hang in the
National Portrait Gallery. ==Family and death==