Peter Lowe was born in Los Angeles in July 4, 1913 and at the age of one his family moved to China. He began his arts at the age of six, learning calligraphy and how to sculpt under the supervision of Buddhist monks. Lowe returned to the United States and settled in San Francisco, California where he became friends with a group of Chinese American artists. Together they hired Otis Oldfield to teach them, which led many of the members to exhibit at the de Young Museum as the Chinese Art Association and Chinatown Artists Club.

Lowe owned a garment factory with a friend while he pursued art, but the business had not been financially successful. Lowe's friend, Dong Kingman approached Lowe with the idea to find work with WPA art project. Lowe was at first credited as a gardener, but after he revealed other skills as a landscape painter he was commissioned to work on murals for Treasure Island under Herman Volz. Lowe was later assigned to work on the mosaic mural at San Francisco City College, and while he worked on these projects he also produced lithograph prints for WPA. Lowe also was an elected member of the San Francisco Art Association in 1946 amidst his prolific work as a muralist.

Lowe exhibited at the 60th Annual Painting and Sculpture Exhibition of the San Francisco Art Association at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1940, 62nd Annual Painting and Sculpture Exhibition of the San Francisco Art Association at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1942, and also at the 65th Annual Painting and Sculpture Exhibition of the San Francisco Art Association at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1945.

But at the turn of events when the United States joined World War II, Lowe also joined the US Navy. He never returned to painting though his own artist friend, Volz, acclaimed Lowe as a marvelous and quite talented painter. Herman Volz voiced that Lowe's abandonment of all art may have been due to the difficulties and pressures Lowe felt while working for WPA. Lowe later owned and ran his own grocery in Oakland and died on February 27, 1989.