Lee Adler was born Leo Adler in New York City's Lower East Side in 1926. There is confusion about his birth year since during his artistic career, Adler listed 1934 as his year of birth. According to his son, he did so in order to make himself seem like a younger artist as he was beginning his career in art.
Adler studied at the Art Students League from 1962–1964 and, and from 1964–1965, he studied at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. His sketchbooks from the late 1950s and early 1960s contain numerous ink and watercolor drawings of Brooklyn's industrial waterfront, located not far from the artist's home in Brooklyn Heights.
In 1967, Adler had his first solo exhibition at the Salpeter Gallery. In 1969, he studied printmaking at the Pratt Graphics Center. In 1974, his solo exhibition Industry and the Artist was held at the Hagley Museum. The exhibition traveled in 1977 and 1978 to the Albert White Gallery in Toronto; Lillian Heidenberg Gallery in New York; the Weatherspoon Art Gallery in Greensboro, NC; the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, NC, and the Hermitage Foundation Museum in Norfolk, VA. In 1983, Adler left Brooklyn and moved to Lime Kiln Farm in Climax, New York where he lived for 20 years until his death in 2003.
The artist's abstract paintings and prints were informed by his interest in the urban landscape and modern industry.
