Where Did They Get Such Weird Images?

Here are a couple of more covers from Ballantine's 1970s paperbacks of H.P. Lovecraft's tales.

These are actually Volumes 1 and 2 of Tales from the Cthulhu Mythos, tales wherein other writers took up the burden of the HPL worldview.

The cover artist is listed as John Holmes.

Surely not THAT John Holmes (the dirty movie guy)!

Later printings features art by Russ Titelman, but these by Holmes are the creepiest by far, to me anyway.