Gerhard Richter (b. 1932) was born in Dresden, Germany. He studied at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts and then the Düsseldorf Art Academy. His work has been the subject of exhibitions internationally, including touring retrospectives at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf; Tate, London; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, among many others. Richter has experimented with sculpture, photography, drawing and, notably, painting. Aided by the diversity of his media, the artist has continuously examined the nature of imagery, highlighting in particular the contingency of representation.

Marcus du Sautoy is the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the Oxford University. He is also a Professor of Mathematics and a Fellow of New College. In 2004, Esquire Magazine chose him as one of the 100 most influential people under 40 in Britain and in 2009 he was awarded the Royal Society's Faraday Prize, the UK's premier award for excellence in communicating science. He received an OBE for services to science in the 2010 New Year's Honours List and the London Mathematical Society Zeeman Medal for 2014 for promotion of mathematics to the public.