Gallery

Peter Snow

Born in London in 1927 Peter Snow served with the forces in Cairo and Jerusalem before studying painting and stage design at the Slade School of Art from 1948-53. Snow became a member of staff at the Slade in 1957 and Head of Theatre design from 1967 up until 1992, being made a Professor in 1996.

Peter Snow was best known for having designed Waiting for Godot for Sir Peter Hall in 1955, which made his reputation as a stage designer overnight and had a radical influence on stage design around the world. Other theatre and ballet productions included Variations on a Theme by Purcell (Britten) directed by Frederick Ashton in 1955 and Intrigues and Amoures (Vanbrugh) directed by Joan Littlewood in 1963. Littlewood became a life long friend whose portrait painted by Snow along with another of Sir Richard Eyre, both hang in the National Portrait gallery.

Snow had his first solo exhibition at the Beaux Arts gallery in 1957. For the next 50 years Snow had regular solo exhibitions at the Beaux Arts, Piccadilly and Albermale Galleries in London and at the Pratt Institute in New York. He also took part in regular mixed exhibitions in England and abroad including at the ICA, Arts Council, Barbican, Royal Academy and Serpentine in London where he exhibited alongside the most important artists of his generation, including Frank Auerbach, John Bratby, Jeffery Camp, Prunella Clough, Lucian Freud, Terry Frost, Patrick Heron and Peter Lanyon.

In 1995 in the introduction to the catalogue accompanying Snow’s retrospective exhibition at The Morley Gallery in London, the art critic John McEwen wrote ‘Peter’s painting is clearly a lot to do with light and it is the light, the mood made by light, that is its magic. He understands this better than most artists with his deep knowledge of the theatre. How perceptive of Peter Hall to describe him as ‘a painter in love with the theatre’.’

Peter Snow’s work can be found in many public and private collections including The Museum of London, The Theatre Museum at The V & A Museum, The Britten – Pears Foundation and The National Portrait Gallery.

The Art Stable will be exhibiting paintings from the 1950’s to the 1990’s: large oils, cityscapes of London and Paris, some interiors and garden pictures and smaller watercolours.