Dale Matthews was born in Rossland BC. From an early age Dale showed that he much preferred drawing and painting the mountains to digging gold from them. After completing high school he went to the Vancouver School of Art (now the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design), receiving a degree in Fine Arts in 1961.
Dale worked as a commercial artist and architectural renderer in Toronto and Edmonton before establishing his own interior design firm in Vancouver. He had a long and successful career, raising a family with his wife Phyllis while dividing his spare time between boating on the coast and skiing in the interior. After several decades of business Dale retired from the design business and moved to Summerland to devote more time to painting and travelling. His paintings reflect his love for the out of doors and heritage architecture.