Wellington Chung-Hsi Lee was born in 1918 to U.S. citizens in Kwantung, China. He moved to the New York in 1935. A few years later, he made his first photographs, with a small camera in Central Park. He graduated in 1943 from what is now the New York School of Art and Design with a degree in photography. During World War II, he was a military photographer. Following the war, he worked for the Jons Fashion Studio in New York for a few years, and in 1950 established his own portrait business. Situated in Chinatown, the Wellington Lee Studio operated for over twenty-five years.