I am saddened, but glad that I got to meet the man.
I was at the Burbank Hilton for 1999’s LosCon and wound up talking to a lady who ran the art show, I mentioned that she’d probubly want to ask this celebrity artist, Mr. Freas, that was attending, if he’d show up for her panel discussion, she laughed and said “Oh I think he’ll show… I’m his wife.” laughter ensued.
Later, walking past his table at the restraunt she saw me and asked me to come over and told him the story. We had a laugh and he sai that we may as well join them as it was a big table and waitresses were hard to come by.
I had no ida he was still alive. I hadn’t heard anything about him in so long.
Not only did Freas do a great many covers for Analog/astounding, he also did a lot of ad parodies in the earl magazine days of MAD. (“Paying for a Diamond is Forever… Painted for all De Beers he could drink by Frank Kelly Freas”.)
He did indeed! That’s how I recognized his name from the OP. As near as I can determine, he did most of the covers from issue #40 - #70. You can check out his work here.