H. R. Giger

This is the 22nd post in our Author of the Week series.



Hans Rudolf 'Ruedi' Giger was born in 1940 in Switzerland. In 1962 he moved to Zurich where he studied architecture and industrial design at the School of Applied Arts.

He began creating his first artworks in 1964. They were mostly ink drawings and oil paintings and they led to his first solo exhibition in 1966. This was soon followed by his first poster distribution in 1969. It was after this period that he discovered the airbrush and this led to the creation of many biomechanical dreamscapes for which he is very famous.


There have been numerous books published of his art and one of the most famous was Necronomicon in 1977. This led to him being called upon to create the world and the Alien in the movie Alien. He then went on to work on Poltergeist II, Alien 3 and Species.

His work expanded to include some of the most popular album covers and sculpture. He even created his first complete environment the Tokyo Giger Bar in 1988 and a second Giger bar in 1992.



The H. R. Giger Museum was inaugurated in 1998 in Switzerland.

To learn more about the Giger Museum.