Peter Wirth was born in Bochum in 1951 and grew up in the industrial Ruhrgebiet. Even as a young schoolboy — first carrying his Schultüte on the first day and later sitting at his desk with a writing slate — an early attentiveness to form and detail was taking shape. These formative years in postwar Germany would later find their way into his art, in the textures, materials, and quiet observation that defined his practice.

He began his professional life as a typesetter (Schriftsetzer), a discipline that sharpened his sense of visual structure. He completed the Abitur on the second educational path and enrolled at the Folkwang School in Essen — now Folkwang University of the Arts — where he studied Graphic Design under Professor Sabine Tschierschky, graduating with a diploma and distinction.

At Folkwang he met Angelika Hannig-Wirth, his fellow student and future wife. Together they worked the printmaking presses — etchings, lithographs, precise in execution and rooted in direct material contact. That foundation remained visible in every medium Wirth later pursued. Today, Angelika Hannig-Wirth continues his legacy as the founder and director of Divine Editions.

Exhibition posters for ‘Mutmaßungen über Nofretete’ (Speculations on Nefertiti) at the entrance of the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection, Berlin, 1993. The exhibition placed Wirth’s large-format works in direct dialogue with ancient Egyptian artifacts — one of the most prominent institutional presentations of his career.

A defining chapter in Wirth's career was his engagement with Egyptian mythology. His series Mutmaßungen über Nofretete (Speculations on Nefertiti) was exhibited at the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection in Berlin in 1993, organized in collaboration with Egyptologist Dietrich Wildung. Wirth's large-format abstract paintings were installed among ancient artifacts — columns, stone fragments, a monumental sarcophagus. The result was a dialogue between contemporary abstraction and millennia-old sculptural form. The exhibition remains one of the most prominent institutional presentations of his work.

In his later years, Wirth turned to photography with the same intensity he had brought to painting and printmaking. Working with analog cameras — Leica, Nikon, Hasselblad, Exakta among them — he developed a distinctive approach to image-making, including reinterpretations of stills from classic films by directors such as Alfred Hitchcock.

His attic studio in Bottrop, with its paint-stained floor and walls lined with reference material, reflected the density of a practice that never stopped expanding. Chalk drawings, comics, still life series, and photographic work coexisted in one space.

Wirth’s work was shown across Germany — from Haus der Kunst in Munich (1984) to Museum Quadrat in Bottrop (2010) and Folkwang Museum in Essen (2014). Institutional recognition included first prize at the Grafikwettbewerb in Essen (1978), a grant from the Aldegrever-Gesellschaft in Münster (1982), and second place at the Kunstpreis Junger Westen in Recklinghausen (1983).

A sustained partnership shaped his exhibition history: Galerie Mönch in Bremen-Oberneuland has represented his work since the 1980s and continues to exhibit it posthumously. His work is also represented in several public and private collections.