Born in Battiest, Oklahoma, part of the Choctaw nation, Jerry Ingram attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Sante Fe, New Mexico, before receiving a B.A. degree from Oklahoma State Technical Institute in 1966.

George Inness was born in New York City and grew up on a farm in Newark, New Jersey. His minimal art training consisted of time spent with an itinerant artist, John Jesse Barker (who had studied with Thomas Sully), and a year's apprenticeship to a map engraver.