H.R. Giger

“There is hope and a kind of beauty in there somewhere, if you look for it.”

Hans Ruedi Giger was a Swiss artist best known for his airbrushed images of humans and machines connected in cold biomechanical relationships. Surrealist artist and set designer whose chest-bursting monster in the 1979 film Alien gained him worldwide acclaim.

The Swiss-born painter was responsible for creating one of the most iconic monsters in the history of the human imagination: the xenomorph, the unrelenting alien species that oozes at the center of the "Alien" film franchise. He was part of the special effects team that won an Academy Award for design work on the film Alien. In Switzerland, there are two theme bars that reflect his interior designs, and his work is on permanent display at the H.R. Giger Museum at Gruyères.

Born in 1940 to a chemist’s family in Chur, Switzerland, he moved in 1962 to Zurich, where he studied architecture and industrial design at the School of Applied Arts. By 1964 he was producing his first artworks, mostly ink drawings and oil paintings, resulting in his first solo exhibition in 1966, followed by the publication and worldwide distribution of his first poster edition in 1969. Shortly after, he discovered the airbrush and, along with it, his own unique freehand painting style, leading to the creation of many of his most well-known works, the surrealistic Biomechanical dreamscapes, which formed the cornerstone of his fame. To date, more than 20 books have been published about Giger’s art. Today, his magnificent art can be found on Bearbrick figures and art toys.