Dehn's satirical prints of European and New York scenes were the product of an unconventional Minnesota upbringing and an iconoclastic eye. The son of a feminist, socialist mother and an atheist, anarchist father, he was not destined for a quiet life.

Lester Johnson was hardly a typical abstract expressionist. A prominent artist in New York, Johnson was very much a part of the 8th Street artists' club as well as the 10th Street artists' co-op movement.

Originally a studio photographer from the North Dakota Territory, Haynes spent most of his career documenting in pictures the development of the western territories.

Wanda Gag was the daughter of German immigrants engaged in the arts—her father was a painter, her mother a photographer. As a result, she was immersed in art during her childhood, which led her to attend art schools in St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Homer Dodge Martin, a native of Albany, New York, was largely self-taught. He established his career with cool and tightly painted landscapes in the tradition of the Hudson River school.

Realist painter in the style of his teachers, Kenneth Hayes Miller, John Sloan and Robert Henri. An active member of the artists' colony in Woodstock, N.Y., he painted information portraits and landscapes.