Dick Lee worked compulsively all his life from nature. His paintings have the completeness of beautifully performed music, and he had the visual equivalent of a special ear.
Lee taught at Camberwell School of Art, south London.
Born and raised in Bulawayo,now Zimbabwe and did his War service in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (1942-45).

He loved the sea, became gunnery officer on a destroyer escorting Malta convoys, and drew cartoons of officers, including Admiral Andrew Cunningham and Lord Mountbatten.
Living on a shoestring in postwar Peckham, Lee was befriended by the painter John Dodgson. In 1951, an Abbey Major scholarship took him to Rome. He spent 30 years at Camberwell firstly in charge of the third year and then head of foundation. In the early 1960s, Lee and Gillian, whom he had married in 1954, bought a holiday home at Ingleville, in Normandy, where he painted. In 1982, they moved to Norfolk, where beachcombing added to his repertoire of "made" works.

Lee's most overt comment on life is the set of small paintings in which he illustrated Joseph Heller's novel Catch 22, his favourite reading, and which are now in the Imperial War Museum. Southampton Gallery has an excellent early portrait, but most of his work remains in private collections.