""Here's your rifle. Take it." Magazine Story Illustration"   Lot no. 4255

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Story illustration for “Confession” by Margret G. Trotter for The Saturday Evening Post, published March 20, 1948, page 26.

The full caption reads: “He was saying hoarsely, ‘Here’s your rifle. Take it.’”

 

Amos Sewell’s illustration for Margret G. Trotter’s story “Confession,” published in The Saturday Evening Post, captures a moment charged with palpable tension. The scene unfolds as Chan, a young reporter, encounters Breck Hardin, a man wanted for murder and on the run in the mountains.

 

When Chan’s car gets stuck in mud, Breck, shabbily clad in torn clothing and caked in dirt, lays down his rifle to assist. Seizing the opportunity, Chan picks up the weapon and momentarily considers turning Breck in for the $300 reward. Yet, as he stands unnoticed, rifle awkwardly in hand, he realizes that he cannot go through with it. With his heart pounding, Chan hoarsely offers the gun back, stating, “Here’s your rifle. Take it.”

 

Unaware of Chan’s internal conflict, Breck casually retrieves his rifle. The two men then discuss the murdered woman’s recent funeral, leading to Breck’s eventual confession. Chan, having witnessed the crime, already knew of his guilt. Sewell’s illustration skillfully conveys the drama of the moment and the killer’s inner turmoil as the grapples with his actions.

Explore related art collections: Sports / Magazine Stories / Men / Dark/Somber / $100 - $5,000 / Violence/Guns / Newly Researched

See all original artwork by Amos Sewell

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Amos Sewell had a special empathy for children and also particularly enjoyed depicting homespun, rural subjects. These special gifts were ideally combined in the illustrations he made for a series of stories about Babe, Little Joe, Big Joe, and Uncle Pete by R. Ross Annett that ran for over twenty years in The Saturday Evening Post.

Sewell was born in San Francisco and studied nights at the California School of Fine Arts, working days in a bank. After some years of this, he decided to try his luck as an illustrator in the East. To get there, he shipped out as a working hand on a lumber boat going by way of the Panama Canal.

In New York, he studied at the Art Students League and at the Grand Central School of Art. Among his teachers were Guy Pene DuBois, Julian Levi and Harvey Dunn. At the same time, he began to draw black and white dry-brush illustrations for the Pulp magazines.

He illustrated his first major manuscript for The Country Gentleman in 1937; next came The Saturday Evening Post, for which he subsequently also painted many covers. This led to commissions from other national magazines. Sewell also illustrated for many major advertisers, and his work won awards from the Art Directors Clubs of New York and Cleveland, were exhibited at the Society of Illustrators, and included in traveling exhibits both here and abroad.