Peter Plagens was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1941. He is an American artist, art critic, and novelist based in New York City. He is most widely known for his longstanding contributions to Artforum and Newsweek, and for what critics have called a remarkably consistent, five-decade-long body of abstract formalist painting.

Plagens has received recognition from major art institutions for both his art and writing. He received painting fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Brown Foundation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Plagens's art has been acquired by numerous public and corporate collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Denver Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Baltimore Museum of Art, Albright-Knox Gallery, Museum of New Mexico, and Ackland Art Museum, among others.