Albert Ludwig Sigesmund Neisser
Neisser was born in the Silesian town of Schweidnitz (now Świdnica, in Poland), the son of a well-known Jewish physician, Dr. Moritz Neisser. After he completed the elementary school in Münsterberg, Neisser enrolled in the St. Maria Magdalena School in Breslau (now Wrocław, in Poland). In this school, he was a contemporary of another great name in the history of medicine, Paul Ehrlich. He obtained the Abitur in 1872.
Albert Edward Cloutier
Albert Edward Cloutier was born in 1902 of Canadian parents in Leominster, Massachusetts, USA.
The family moved back to Canada 1903.
As a child he was encouraged to paint by his parents. He was mostly self-taught.
He went on painting trips with A. Y. Jackson and Edwin Holgate.
Cloutier was an apprentice with Smeaton Bros in Montreal in 1918–21.
He worked with Associated Engravers in Montreal (1922–25) and with Batten Ltd. in Montreal (1926–29).
From 1929 to 1940 he was a freelance graphic designer and illustrator in Montreal.
He was part of the "Oxford Group" led by the painters André Biéler and Edwin Holgate, which met in a below-ground room at the Oxford tavern at lunchtime. The group had roughly equal numbers of francophone and anglophone members. Other members were Adrien Hébert, the art critic Jean Chauvin and the editor Carrier.