and decried cruelty to sheep, and expressed sympathy for the plight of Marilyn Monroe in letters to newspapers, De Lisle had a reputation at the college for a wolfish attitude to young women, and one of De Lisle's students, and employee at his studio, was Graham Howe, who regarded him "as the Sam Haskins of Australia". Victorian premier of 1955–72, Henry Bolte's vice squad raided his family home, confiscating his "pornography"; nudes for which he was then winning international awards, an experience which confirmed his vehemently expressed opposition to censorship, particularly of the arts. A regular writer of letters to the editor, he notoriously criticised the new National Gallery in Melbourne: "The building squats, featureless, like an obscure grey telephone exchange, floating in already scungy moats floored with lolly papers ... like a bleak penitentiary."
