Peter Snow

Published Tuesday 16 September 2008 at 14:50 by Patrick Newley

Leading British theatre designer and painter Peter Snow made his name with his set and costumes for the original production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (Arts Theatre, 1955) and later with a variety of productions for Joan Littlewood at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East.

Born on June 6, 1927, in London, he began his career as a journalist on the South London Press and later he studied at Goldsmiths College School of Art. He did his national service in the Royal Engineers, posted to Cairo, where he worked with the Forces Broadcasting Service as an announcer.

He went on study at the Slade School in London and had his first exhibition as a painter in 1957.

Among his many stage design credits were productions of Frederick Ashton’s ballet Variatians on a Theme (Covent Garden), Reflections! and Reflections 11 (Ballet Minerva), and he also designed many shows for the English Opera Group.

He was a much respected teacher of theatre design at the Slade School and became head of theatre design in 1967, then professor in 2003. He retired that same year when he began suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Many of Snow’s theatre designs are held in collections at the Theatre Museum, the Museum of London and the Britten-Pears Foundation.

Sir Peter Hall once described Snow as “a painter in love with theatre” and his daughter Selina, also a designer, said: “My father believed in the magic of the theatre, music and ballet. I don’t know where he got that from, because it was so different from the rest of the family. If I sat next to him at the ballet, he would be crying, it so moved him.”

He died on August 29, aged 81. He is survived by his daughter.