Greenaway, Peter 1942-
English filmmaker and painter

Born in London, he trained as a painter, and first exhibited at the Lord's Gallery in 1964. Employed at the Central Office of Information (1965-76), he worked as an editor and began making his own short films. He later gained a reputation for originality and invention on the international festival circuit with such works as A Walk Through H (1978) and The Falls (1980) before The Draughtsman's Contract (1982) won him critical acclaim and a wider audience. He has subsequently pursued a prolific career utilizing ravishing visual composition, a painterly sense of colour and the distinctive music of Michael Nyman to explore such preoccupations as sex, death, decay and gamesmanship in films like The Belly of An Architect (1987), Drowning By Numbers (1988) and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989). His Prospero's Books (1991) was based on The Tempest and starred John Gielgud playing the leading role and voicing all the others. Later films include The Baby of M�con (1993) and The Pillow Book (1996).