Peets, a painter and printmaker, studied at the Academie Julian and at the Ecole des Beaux-Art in Paris. In addition to being a member of the Wilmington Society of Fine Arts and the Rehoboth Art League in Delaware, he was an early member of the Woodstock Artists Association. Peets adamently promoted equal representation for the academic painter within the Woodstock Artists Association at a time when the modernists were gaining dominance. Peets, unable to achieve his goal, resigned from the board of trustees of the Association.