Born in Holmfirth, Yorkshire, England. After studying in the Department of Fine Arts at Newcastle University (1961-65), he taught there between 1965 and 66. He held his first one-man show in 1965 at the Rowan Gallery, London and took part in the 1963 and 1965 Young Contemporaries exhibitions at the RBA Galleries, London and The New Generation: 1964 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. Between 1968 and 1969, he taught at the Bath Academy of Art and from 1968 to 70 he was artist in residence at King's College, Cambridge. After moving to New York in 1972, where he first went in 1964, he became part of Andy Warhol's circle, visiting his house and participating in some of his films. Through Warhol, he met various North American artists, working for some time as Jasper Johns' assistant. Before returning to England in 1985, he was artistic consultant to the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in the eighties. In Lancaster's post-1964 work, there is a mixture of Warhol's effortlessness and the committment to maintain the integrity of the canvas as an object characteristic of Frank Stella. There is also a proximity to the work of Jasper Johns, namely through the interest in gentle visual ironies, in a continual negation, affirmation and re-evaluation of possibilities. At present he lives in Rhode Island, USA.