WILLIAM HENRY DETHLEF KOERNER | WHO GOT HIM? WHO SHOT HIM?

The artist

Ruth Koerner Oliver, Santa Barbara, California (by descent)

S. Hallock du Pont, Jr., Florida, 1973 (acquired from the above)

By descent to the present owner

Charles Francis Coe, "Hooch," The Saturday Evening Post, January 19, 1929, p. 30, illustrated (as Carroll Walked Close to the Tree and Played the Light Directly Over His Exhibit. Flenger Bit Hard on the Cigar. It Was Not Easy–This Business)

Charles Francis Coe's story Hooch teased, "There were two cops. One was straight and one wasn't." Although a fictional story, Coe's novel profiled the real life gangsters, corrupt politicians and the business of rum racketeering during the Prohibition era in Chicago. Koerner was commissioned to illustrate the vivid and often gruesome details of Coe's story. The present work was one among the many story illustrations he produced for articles in the Saturday Evening Post.