"“The Hanging of Cultus George,” Cosmopolitan Magazine" Lot no. 1005
By Anton Otto Fischer (American- 1882-1962)
1911 (Estimated)
30.00" x 21.00", Framed 33.5" x 24.5"
Oil on Canvas
Signed Lower Right
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Story illustration for “Smoke Bellew” by Jack London for Cosmopolitan magazine, published January 1912, page 200.
This dramatic story illustration for Jack London's "Smoke Bellew" depicts a tense scene within a room filled with angry traders. Surrounding a captive Native American, they prepare to execute him. With much awkwardness and angry haste, they attempt to place a noose around the Indian's neck, while a rope is strung over a rafter. A dozen men, eager to carry out the sentence, grip the rope at the other end. "'Wait!" Smoke Bellew commands, his voice cutting through the tension. "Tie his hands. We don't want him climbing."
The full caption reads: “With much awkwardness and angry haste, they got the slip-noose around the Indian’s neck and rove the rope over a rafter. At the other end a dozen men tailed on, ready to hoist away. ‘Wait,’ Smoke commanded. ‘Tie his hands. We don’t want him climbing.’”
Signed Lower Right: Anton Fischer 11
Explore related art collections: Brandywine School / Magazine Stories / Black & White / Action / Violence/Guns / Dark/Somber / Men / 1910s / $5,000 - $20,000 / Newly Researched
See all original artwork by Anton Otto Fischer
ABOUT THE ARTIST
The marine paintings by Anton Otto Fischer are as authoritative as only a working sailor could make them. Born in Munich, Germany but orphaned as a boy, Fischer ran away to sea at 16 and spent eight years before the mast on a variety of sailing ships. Paid off in New York, he stayed to apply for American citizenship and to teach seamanship on the school ship, "St. Mary's." He later served as a hand on racing yachts on Long Island Sound and worked as a model and handyman for the illustrator A.B. Frost. When he had saved enough money, he spent two years at the Academie Julian in Paris under Laurens.
Returning to the United States, Fischer sold his first picture to Harper's Weekly in 1908, around the time he moves to Wilmington to receive critiques from Pyle. Everybody's magazine sent him the first of several Jack London stories. In 1910, he began a 48-year association with The Saturday Evening Post, which included illustrating seialized characters such as Peter B. Kyne's "Crappy Ricks," Norman Reilly Raine's "Tugoat Annie," Guy Gilpatrick's "Glencannon," as well as serials for Kenneth Robert and Nordoff and Hall.
In 1942, he was given the ran of Lieutenant Commander as "Artist Laureate" for the United States Coast Guard and was assigned Moth Atlantic convoy duty on the Coast Guard cutter "Campbell" during the winter of 1943. The "Campbell" was disabled during a successful attack on a German U-boat, and Fischer's dramatic paintings of this experience were published by Life magazine. The pictures are now in the Coast Guard Academy at New London, Connecticut.
In 1947, Fischer wrote and illustrated a book about his earlier sailing years, entitled Fo'c'sle Days, published by Charles Scribner's Sons.