George Perle was an American composer and music theorist. His atonal music used methods similar to the twelve-tone technique of the Second Viennese School. His book Serial Composition and Atonality (1962) remains a standard text for twentieth-century theory.

The photograph is by the Pach Brothers, German immigrants who opened a studio in New York in 1866 and took thousands of portraits, including some of American presidents. The business remained operational until 1994.