Born in Bonn (North Rhine-Westphalia) in 1906, Peter Janssen studied from 1923 to 1926 at the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf. Studies continued from 1926 at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, where he graduated in 1928. In 1935 exclusion from the Reich Chamber of Culture, prohibited him from work. With the war over, he worked once more as a freelance artist in Düsseldorf, was awarded the Cornelius Prize of the City of Düsseldorf in 1952 and became a member of the Neue Rheinische Sezession. From 1957 to 1971 he taught at the University of the Fine Arts, West Berlin. Janssen died in Berlin in 1979.