Art historian Roger Lee was born in Vancouver. After graduating from the University of British Columbia, he taught Art History at the University of Regina for more than 30 years. In 1980, Mr. Lee was invited to teach courses on western art history in China. Such an invitation was extremely rare in the early stages of modernization reforms in China during the 1980s. After he retired in 2000, Mr. Lee joined the British Columbia Creative Center as a visiting lecturer and critic.