Charles J. Andres (1913-2008)
Born Sept. 6, 1913, in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., to Grace (née Rooney) and Charles Aloysius Andres, Charles J. Andres attended Regis High School, (New York City), the Severn School (Annapolis, MD), and the U.S. Naval Academy, in Annapolis. Leaving a career in the Navy ("I flunked out of Annapolis twice," Andres would say, chuckling), he decided to pursue his heart's secret desire to study art.
He studied in New York City with Charles S. Chapman and Thomas Fogarty at the Phoenix Institute of Art, with Frank Reilly in his studio, with George Bridgman at the Art Student's League, and at the Grand Central School of Art with Harvey Dunn, an artistic mentor who had most lasting influence on Andres. Dunn's teachings reflected the ideals of his teacher, Howard Pyle, who founded the Brandywine School of Illustration. Andres' memoir of Dunn and the notes he took in his class are included here.
In early 1941, recognizing the likelihood of war, Andres enlisted in the U.S. Navy as a common seaman. From his service in the North Atlantic on the USS Zircon (PY-16, a pleasure yacht that had been converted to a patrol vessel), Andres received a combat ribbon for engagement with the enemy before Pearl Harbor. The Navy soon put his artistic talents to work by reassigning Andres to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where he painted covers for Sea Power magazine (a publication of the Navy League) as well a recruiting posters for the Army, Navy and Marines. These covers and posters were where he honed his craft as an illustrator.
Late in 1945, Andres worked as a freelance illustrator in the New York City area, painting cover illustrations for nine of the first paperbacks published by Bantam Books, covers for Random House, Little, Brown & Company, Charles Scribner's Sons, and Duell, Sloan and Pearce. He illustrated classics, westerns, historical novels and contemporary fiction.
In August of 1950, Andres married Jane Sutton, the widow of an old friend, and adopted Jane's two daughters from her previous marriage. The couple settled in Wells, Maine, where they lived together for 44 years, until Jane passed away in 1995. They had three sons. Andres continued to work as a commercial illustrator until 1965, and occasionally painted portraits on commission through 1984. In 1965, Andres began teaching art at Berwick Academy, in South Berwick, Maine, and continued to teach there until 1981.
Andres came of artistic age at the end of the "Golden Age of American Illustration" and was close friends with many of its luminaries such as Harvey Dunn, Harold Von Schmidt, Dean Cornwell and John Falter. It is hoped that with this website Andres may now take his place in their company as one, who in an inscription by Von Schmidt to Andres, "does them as good as me."
Surveys which include Andres' work:
Paperbacks, USA, Piet Schreuders, Blue Dolphin, 1981
Contemporary Western Artists, Peggy and Harold Samuels, Random House, 1987
Harvey Dunn, Illustrator of the Painter of the Pioneer West, Walt Reed, Flesk, 2010