Walter Peterhans was a photographer and teacher of design.  He studied photographic reproduction techniques at the State Academy of Printing and Graphic Art in Leipzig, Germany, from 1925 to 1926.  From 1927 to 1929, Peterhans operated a photographic studio specializing in industrial and portrait photography in Berlin.  In 1929, Peterhans established and directed the department of photography at the Dessau Bauhaus where he stayed until 1933.  From 1932 to 1933, he was also head of the Photography Department at the private Bauhaus school in Berlin opened by Mies van der Rohe.  From 1935 to 1938, Peterhans worked as a freelance industrial and commercial photographer in Berlin.

Peterhans abandoned photography in 1938 and emigrated to the United States.  He worked as a professor of Visual Training, Analysis and History of Art at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, until his death in 1960.