Irving Petlin was an American artist and painter renowned for his mastery of the pastel medium and collaborations with other artists and for his work in the "series form" in which he employed the raw materials of pastel, oil paint and unprimed linen, and found inspiration in the work of writers and poets including Primo Levi, Bruno Schulz, Paul Celan, Michael Palmer and Edmond Jabès.

Leon Golub was an American painter. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he also studied, receiving his BA at the University of Chicago in 1942, and his BFA and MFA at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1949 and 1950, respectively.