Ellsworth Kelly (born May 31, 1923) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with Hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and the Minimalist school. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing simplicity of form, similar to the work of John McLaughlin and Kenneth Noland. Kelly often employs bright colors. He lives and works in Spencertown, New York.

Kelly was born the second son of three to Allan Howe Kelly and Florence Bithens Kelly in Newburgh, New York, a town approximately 60 miles north of New York City. His father was an insurance company executive of Scots-Irish and German descent. His mother was a former schoolteacher of Welsh and Pennsylvania-German stock. His family moved from Newburgh to New Jersey shortly after he was born. Kelly remembers his mother moving his family each year to a different house. They lived in many places in New Jersey both in and around the Hackensack area.

Many of Kelly’s memories are of the time they lived in Oradell a town of nearly 7,500 people. His family lived near the Oradell Reservoir, where his paternal grandmother Rosenlieb introduced him to bird watching at the age of eight or nine. Bird watching helped Kelly train his eyes and develop his appreciation for the physical reality of the world by focusing on nature’s shapes. He developed his passion for form and color. As part of his interest, he studied the works of Louis Agassiz Fuertes and John James Audubon. Audubon had a particularly strong influence on Kelly’s work throughout his career. Author E.C. Goossen speculates that the two and three-color paintings (such as Three Panels: Red Yellow Blue, I 1963) for which Kelly is so well known can be traced to his bird watching, and his study of the two and three-color birds he saw so frequently at an early age. Kelly has said he was often alone as a young boy and became somewhat of a "loner". He had a slight stutter that persisted into his teenage years.

Agnes Gund (born 1938), is an American philanthropist, art patron and collector, and advocate for arts education. She is founding trustee of the Agnes Gund Foundation and President Emerita of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Chairman of its International Council. She is also Chairman of MoMA PS1 Contemporary Art Center. In 2011, Gund was nominated by President Barack Obama as a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Council on the Arts.

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Gund is a member of one of Cleveland's more prominent families. Her father, George Gund II, was president and chairman of Cleveland Trust when it was Ohio's largest bank. Born in 1938, she is the second oldest of six children. Two of her brothers, Gordon Gund and George Gund, partners in Gund Investment Corporation, were the former owners of the San Jose Sharks (National Hockey League) and Cleveland Cavaliers (National Basketball Association). Her brother, Graham, is a renowned architect; her brother, Geoff, is a career teacher of economics and American history; and her sister, Louise, is a psychologist, environmentalist, woman’s activist, and philanthropist. Agnes Gund resides in New York City.

Henry R. Kravis (born January 6, 1944) is an American businessman and private equity investor. He is the co-founder of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., a private equity firm with over $62 billion in assets as of 2011. He has an estimated net worth of $3.7 billion as of September 2011, ranked by Forbes as the 88th richest man in America. He mainly lives in New York City and has a residence in Palm Beach, Florida.

Kravis was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Bessie (Roberts) and Raymond Kravis, a successful Tulsa oil engineer who had been a business partner of Joseph P. Kennedy. Kravis began his education at the Eaglebrook School, ('60) followed by high school at the Loomis Chaffee School. He then majored in economics at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California and graduated in 1967 before going on to Columbia Business School, where he received an MBA degree in 1969.

After working at various jobs in New York City's financial sector, he and his first cousin, George R. Roberts, joined the staff of Bear Stearns. Kravis and Roberts share the same grandfather, an immigrant from Russia.^{[citation needed]} There, they worked under the corporate finance manager, Jerome Kohlberg, Jr.. They both became partners at Bear Stearns at a very young age, 30 and 31.