Hans Rudolf "Ruedi" Giger ( 5
February 1940 – 12 May 2014) was a Swiss surrealist painter, whose
style was adapted for many forms of media, including record-albums,
furniture and tattoo-art.
The Zurich-based artist was best known
for airbrush images of humans and machines linked together in a cold
'biomechanical' relationship. Later he abandoned airbrush work for
pastels, markers or ink. 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.Giger was born in 1940 in Chur, capital city of
Graubünden, the largest and easternmost Swiss canton. His father, a
pharmacist, viewed art as a "breadless profession" and
strongly encouraged him to enter pharmacy, Giger recalled. He moved
to Zürich in 1962, where he studied Architecture and industrial
design at the School of Applied Arts until 1970
Giger's first success was when H. H.
Kunz, co-owner of Switzerland's first poster publishing company,
printed and distributed Giger's first posters, beginning in 1969.
Giger's style and thematic execution
were influential. He was part of the special effects team that won an
Academy Award for Best Achievement in Visual Effects for their design
work on the film Alien. His design for the Alien was inspired by his
painting Necronom IV and earned him an Oscar in 1980. His books of
paintings, particularly Necronomicon and Necronomicon II (1985) and
the frequent appearance of his art in Omni magazine continued his
rise to international prominence. Giger was admitted to the Science
Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2013. He is also well known for
artwork on several music recording albums including ELP's Brain Salad
Surgery and Deborah Harry's KooKoo.In 1998 Giger acquired the Château
St. Germain in Gruyères, Switzerland, and it now houses the H.R.
Giger Museum, a permanent repository of his work
Giger started with small ink drawings
before progressing to oil paintings. For most of his career, Giger
had worked predominantly in airbrush, creating monochromatic
canvasses depicting surreal, nightmarish dreamscapes. However, he
then largely abandoned large airbrush works in favor of works with
pastels, markers or ink.
Giger's most distinctive stylistic
innovation was that of a representation of human bodies and machines
in a cold, interconnected relationship, he described as
"biomechanical". His main influences were painters Dado,
Ernst Fuchs and Salvador Dalí. He met Salvador Dalí, to whom he was
introduced by painter Robert Venosa. Giger was also influenced by the
work of the sculptor Stanislas Szukalski, and by the painters Austin
Osman Spare and Mati Klarwein. He was also a personal friend of
Timothy Leary. Giger studied interior and industrial design at the
School of Commercial Art in Zurich (from 1962 to 1965) and made his
first paintings as a means of art therapy.Wikipedia
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