H.R. Giger Has Passed Away

According to multiple reports coming out of Switzerland, H.R. Giger has passed away at the age of 74. Sandra Mivelaz, administrator of the H.R. Giger museum, told reporters that Giger died in a hospital yesterday after sustaining injuries from a fall at his museum.

Born in 1940, Swiss surrealist Hans Rudolf Giger had a style that was instantly recognizable and can be seen in everything from paintings and sculptures, to movies, furniture, guitars, tattoos, album covers, and more. He won an academy award for his work on Alien and contributed designs for Poltergeist II, Species, Batman Forever, and a number of other movies.

H.R. Giger's work has been influencing artists for decades, and his work will continue to induce nightmares and influence a new generation of artists for years to come.

Here is an excerpt from Clive Barker's introduction in H.R. Giger's Necronomicon I, talking about Giger's work reaching so many through Alien and urging people to not just stop there, but to seek out his other works:

"There can be few, if any, painters, in the history of fantastic art whose images have touched so many minds in such a short period as those of Giger. Though many of the great artists of the fantastique Breughel, Goya, Daumier, Dore were very public artists, with their work displayed in churches and salons, newspapers, prints, pamphlets and books, the sum of their admirers during their lifetimes cannot be equalled the audiences that have seen the Alien films since they were made. But while the cinema's power to disseminate images is worthy of note, its very ubiquity may make audiences neglectful of the source of those images. It is Giger's paintings which are his true gift to the world of the imagination..."