Lee Daiwon was born in 1921. Lee Dai-won was a renowned and influential modernist in Korean 20th Century painting. Trained as a lawyer, Lee was inspired by the French modernists, including especially the inventive Fauvist colorists such as Henri Matisse and Andre Derain. While his paintings may at first recall pointillism and related movements, his hatchwork forms, often calligraphic brushwork, and sensitive color palette equally suggest the reduced, elemental forms of traditional landscape painting. Lee was born in Seoul and graduated from law school in 1945. His first solo exhibition was held in Dong Wha Gallery in Seoul in 1957, followed by another solo exhibition at the Asian Center in Tokyo in 1960. The formidable and influential French critic and curator, Pierre Restany, praised Lee's paintings, writing, "That deep nature of the universe which is the unique theme of his art and which beautifully projects the plentitude of joie de vivre. Such a message does not know any frontier. It is the basic affidavit of a universal emotion". Many of Lee's earliest works are held in museum collections. He passed away in 2006 in South Korea.