Peter Moulton Vincent was born in Salt Lake City on April 11, 1945, the first child of Kenneth Chapman Vincent and Elizabeth Moulton Vincent. The family moved frequently because of his father’s employment as a mining and metallurgical engineer, including to Palo Alto, Calif., in 1956, and to Pocatello in 1958. In some respects, the California culture of the late 1950s proved to be the most enduring influence, especially early rock-and-roll (Little Richard, Bo Didley, Elvis Presley) and the hot-rod culture that was just emerging.
Peter really came of age, however, in Pocatello, where he attended junior high and high school, and then went on the graduate from Idaho State University with a degree in architecture. During these years, he also began to pursue his life-time passion: photography. Deeply influenced by the iconic black-and-white photographers of the previous generation, he began photographic studies of nature and of the car culture. He also bought his first cars, including a 1932 Ford coup (quickly turned into a hot rod) and a Porsche 912. In the latter, he traveled back-and-forth across the country in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Peter married Kimberly McGinley in 1981; a son, Nathan, was born in 1982. The family lived for many years in Moscow where he worked with a team of engineers, funded by NASA, on a computer chip that went into the Hubble Telescope, and after this for a start-up company. His wife Kim took a job teaching mathematics education at Washington State University.
It was his photography that grew to be the center of his life. During the 1960s and 1970s, he studied with Ansel Adams, Brett Weston, Duane Michals, and Peter deLory. In 1990, he was awarded a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Idaho. Increasingly, he focused on photographing the world of hot rods, custom cars and the speed trials on the Utah Salt Flats. This led to publishing his photographs and writing articles for various magazines of the car culture (Rodders Journal, American Rodder, Hop Up, Street Rodder and Rod & Custom). And, it led to the publication of his first photography book, Hot Rod: An American Original (2001). He subsequently published four additional books of photographs devoted to the American car culture [Hot Rod: The Photography of Peter Vincent (2004); Hot Rod Garages (2009); The Bonneville Salt Flats (2013); Rolling Bones (2016).
Peter Vincent’s photography was exhibited in dozens of venues. These included the Sun Valley Art Museum, the Oakland Art Museum (California), the San Francisco MOMA Artists Gallery, the Museum of American Speed (Nebraska), the Speed Motorsports Museum (Oregon), the Moscow Contemporary Art Gallery, and the Pritchard Art Gallery (Moscow). He also curated a widely attended exhibit at the Pritchard Gallery, featuring automotive photographers, cars, car parts and more.
Peter also continued to work on his own cars and custom motorcycles. A short list of his cars would include a Ford Woody Wagon; a 1940 Ford coup; the “Original 15 oz. Fuel Coup” dragster, and a modified 1971 Camaro RS.
During the last years of his life, Peter became fascinated with the beauty and culture of Beirut, to which he traveled for extended stays. He and Kimberly, his wife of 36 years, divorced in 2017. Lamentably, in 2018, he returned from Beirut seriously ill, and though he lived for an additional five years, he never fully recovered his health. He died of heart failure at his home on Wednesday, June 21, 2023. He was 78 years old.
He is survived by his son Nathan Vincent of McCleary, Wash.; by his sister Katherine Vincent of Orinda, Calif.; by his brother Steven Vincent of Raleigh, N.C.; and by cousins and members of the extended Vincent and Moulton clans.
The family is not planning any memorial at this time.
