Peake was born in Marshall, Colorado but as a young boy he and his family moved to California. After completing high school, Peake began attending art school at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. Later, he studied at the Santa Barbara School of Art and then traveled to New York to gain artistic training at the Art Students League under Rico Lebrun, a colleague he would come to work with for many years. Peake also befriended the infamous Diego Rivera and traveled to Mexico, Guatemala, and Europe with the famous muralist. During the Great Depression, under the Federal Art Project, Peake became a muralist and in 1928 helped paint murals in Santa Barbara's El Paseo Restaurant, along with fellow artists Edward Borein, Joe DeYong, and Will James. Peake ultimately settled in Santa Barbara where he became a founding member of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Working throughout Santa Ynez and Santa Barbara, Peake collaborated with artist Howard Warshaw on the Don Quixote mural at Santa Barbara City Library.

His work has been exhibited at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, the Carnegie Institute, the Everson Museum in Syracuse, New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the M. De Young Museum in San Francisco, the Pasadena Art Museum, the Portland Museum of Art in Oregon, the San Diego Museum of Art, The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Seattle Museum of Art.