George Gross Covers

GEORGE GROSS
(1909-2003)

George Gross was born February 16, 1909 in Brooklyn. His parents, David and Serena Gross, were both young Jewish immigrants from the city of Szeged, Hungary. His father attended Pratt Institute and became a successful artist in the fashion industry.
When George Gross finished high school he also attended Pratt and graduated in 1931. Even before graduation, George worked for his father, and he was soon joined by both of his siblings. The Gross family business provided George with a uniquely practical approach to commercial illustration.
His first pulp cover assignments were for Mystery Novels Magazine and Double Action Western, which were both Winford Publications. George Gross next found work at Fiction House, where he soon became their top illustrator. He painted hundreds of freelance pulp covers for Action Stories, Air Stories, Baseball Stories, Complete Northwest, Detective Book Magazine, Fight Stories, Football Stories, Jungle Stories, North West Romances, and Wings. He also sold pulp covers to A. A. Wyn's Periodical House, for titles such as Ace Sports and Western Aces.
George Gross produced all of his pre-war pulp covers while working in his father's art studio, Nangro Ferrod Studios, Inc.
After the war George Gross began to sell freelance illustrations to paperback books from such publishers as Dell, Star Books, Lion Books, Bantam, Berkley Books, Cameo Books, and Ace Publications.
In the 1950s George Gross shared an art studio with the illustrator, Mort Kunstler.
In the 1960s he worked for men's adventure magazines, such as Male, Cavalcade, Action For Men, Argosy, Bluebook, Man's Conquest, Man's Illustrated, Man's World, Real, Saga, See, Stag, and True Adventures.
In the 1970s George Gross painted covers for The Avenger series of paperback books, published by Warner Paperbacks.
In the 1980s he painted covers for the popular Nick Carter series of paperbacks for Ace Publications.
According to pulp writer Bill Cox, "George Gross could do exciting paintings even when there were no scantily clad damsels around, and what's more amazing, Fiction House let him!"
George Gross died at age ninety-four on February 23, 2003.

© David Saunders 2009