Cover Art 1945-1956

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After leaving the Navy late in 1945, Andres started his freelance career as an illustrator painting covers for a new imprint, Bantam Books, a creation of publishers Ian and Betty Ballantine, which reprinted hardcover novels in paperback form.  Howard Fast's Citizen Tom Paine was one of the first Bantam paperbacks and Andres' first freelance cover. Delivering a lecture in Boston in 1989, Ian Ballantine remarked on his fondness for that cover: “It was a good, strong cover in 1945, and it would be just as good today.” Andres went on to illustrate nine covers for Bantam, including  Francis Wallace's Kid Galahad (later made into the film starring Elvis Presley), which got Andres type-cast as an illustrator of boxing novels (see Hot Leather and The Bruiser). Westerns (The Tonto Kid, Border Roundup and Comanche Chaser) followed.  William Seabrook's Asylum is considered today one of the first important novels of recovery; for authenticity, Andres is said to have spent a day observing the ward where Seabrook got sober, though that may have been a publisher's apocryphal marketing ploy. 

Andres' cover Illustrations were painted exclusively in oils on canvas. Once approved  by the publisher (often involving a complex negotiation with art directors), they would then be integrated into the dust jacket design.  Occasionally this meant cropping (in the case of the Zane Grey Westerns) and sometimes unfortunate font choices.  It is interesting  to compare the painting of Admiral Nelson and Lady Hamilton on the cover of Pearl Frye's The Sleeping Sword to the original in the Illustration portfolio: Nelson's eye patch was painted out when the artwork was returned to Andres at the request of his wife, Jane, who posed for Lady Hamilton.  Andres posed for Admiral Nelson as can be seen in the archive photos section.