 He is Professor emeritus at Tama Art University.In the mid-1970s Lee introduced Korean five artists whom called later "Dansaekzo Whehwa" (Monotone Painting) school to Japan, which offered a fresh approach to abstraction by presenting repetitive gestural marks as bodily records of time's perpetual passage.In his early painting series, "From Point" and "From Line" (1972–84), Lee combines ground mineral pigment with animal-skin glue, characteristic of nihonga painting in which he was trained.