Ives was the son of a Civil War army bandleader whose musical experimentations came at the expense of his family’s financial well-being. Although the younger Ives shared his father’s musical interests, he pursued a business career after graduating from Yale (B in music, D+ in everything else). Always an innovator, his pioneering work in the insurance industry paved the way for modern estate planning and earned Ives a great deal of money. All the while, Ives continued to compose in his free time culminating, in 1922, in the publication of his 144 Songs. Among his groundbreaking compositions are Central Parkin the Dark, The Unanswered Question and Three Places in New England. Ives was largely ignored during his lifetime and rarely heard much of his work performed. However, the appreciation of his oeuvre that began in the 1930s continued to grow with the help of such admirers as Arnold Schoenberg, Lou Harrison and, later, Michael Tilson Thomas.

Like Ives, the influential American photojournalist Eugene Smith was a pioneer in his field. He is credited with originating the photo essay ("perhaps the single most important American photographer in the development of the editorial photo essay" (O'Hagan, Sean, August 6, 2017, "W Eugene Smith, the photographer who wanted to record everything". The Observer), and among the powerful photographs he took for such magazines as Life and Newsweek are memorable images of U.S. Marines in Iwo Jima, Albert Schweitzer and the devastating effects of mercury poisoning in Minamata, Japan.

In a 1973 interview, Smith recalled photographing Ives: “In all my years and experience of making photographs I have never seen anyone more terrified of the camera than Charles Ives. The only comparable reaction I have seen is that of the so-called uncivilized native who feels that the camera takes away something of his soul. It was not that he was not friendly, but he was plainly terrified. He had a real paranoia about cameras and photography… Ives was semi-cordial when we met, and Mrs. Ives was very sweet. The house on 74th Street was dimly lit which disturbed me, but I began to make some pictures. Suddenly Ives got terribly upset and threw himself down on the couch. I thought I had killed him. He was panting and palpitating. After a while he sat up and recited a poem for me that he wrote… it was all about Beethoven and Beecham and a put-down of musical society with a long list of musical greats, particularly conductors. By now he was sitting in the wicker chair and had put his left arm way out which would have made it look chopped off in a picture. Ives leaned forward and glowered at me but his left hand was still up. So I asked him to bring his arm in next to his body. He said, “No!” very angrily, but then a twinkle came into his eyes and he pulled his arm in and put it on the cane. He leaned forward and I took a terribly long exposure. And that’s the best picture—the one everyone knows and uses,” (Charles Ives Remembered: An Oral History, Perlis).