Peter Lord took a degree in Fine Art at Reading University in 1970. He was a visiting fellow at the Yale Center for British Art in 1994, and subsequently research fellow at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies from 1996–2003. From 2007–10 he was research fellow at CREW, Swansea University. He has published and broadcast extensively on the visual culture of Wales in both Welsh and English languages, and curated major exhibitions for national institutions. Between 1998 and 2003 he published the three volumes of The Visual Culture of Wales, which is regarded as the authoritative text on the subject. In 2013 an autobiography, Relationships with Pictures was published by Parthian Books. It was followed by The Tradition: a New History of Welsh Art 1400–1990, which in 2017 was Wales Non-fiction Book of the Year, and Looking Out: Welsh Painting, Social Class and International Context, also both published by Parthian. His most recent book is The Art of Music: Branding the Welsh Nation, co-written with Rhian Davies.