Peter Westphal was born in Berlin in 1938. There he completed training as a lettering and decorative painter. After undertaking compulsory military service in the National People’s Army of the German Democratic Republic from 1963 to 1965, he worked until 1968 as chief graphic designer at the VEB Berlin Wine Wholesale Cellar. From 1960 to 1973, together with Wolfgang Speer, he directed the Berlin-Pankow Graphic Arts Centre. Study trips took him, among other places, to China, Italy, Vietnam and the Soviet Union. Until 1990, Westphal was a member of the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR. Since 1992 he has lived and worked in the Uckermark region of Brandenburg.