H.R. Giger (1940–2014) was a Swiss painter, sculptor and designer, born in Chur, Switzerland. He studied architecture and industrial design in Zurich, and from the late 1960s developed the airbrushed, monochrome “biomechanical” imagery for which he is known, fusing human bodies with machinery in dense, dreamlike landscapes.

His 1977 book Necronomicon brought his work to the attention of the director Ridley Scott, for whose film Alien (1979) Giger designed the creature and its environments, sharing the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. He went on to work across painting, sculpture, furniture and interiors, and in 1998 opened the HR Giger Museum in the Château St. Germain in Gruyères, Switzerland. He died in Zurich in 2014.