Peter Betthausen (born 27 June 1941) is a German art historian.
In 1971 he received his doctorate at the University of Berlin with a thesis on Hypothesen zu einer kunstwissenschaftlichen Stiltheorie (Hypotheses on a theory of style in art studies) and in 1986 he habilitated on Künstlergemeinschaften der deutschen Romantik (Artist communities of German Romanticism).
From 1974 to 1986 he was also a member of staff at the Institute for Aesthetics and Art Studies at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR.
During his term of office, which lasted until January 1991, he showed a series of exhibitions on artists of the 19th and 20th centuries, including Wolfgang Mattheuer, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Werner Tübke, Gerhard Altenbourg and Bernhard Heisig.
In addition, he organized exhibitions from the holdings of the National Gallery in Vienna and various locations in the United States.