H.R. Giger

Oscar winning set designer, sculptor, and highly-respected painter - these are just a few terms that describe the mind-blowing body of work from legendary Swedish artist H.R. Giger. Giger began painting in his early 20s while attending school in Zurich, and quickly drew attention for his surrealist oil paintings, the majority of which were collected in his most famous book, Necronomicon. The book made a huge splash on the art world when it was released in 1977, with director Ridley Scott becoming one of Giger's most ardent fans. Scott soon commissioned Giger to design the title creature for his horror classic "Alien" (1979), which would ultimately earn the newbie set designer an Oscar. The rest, as they say, is history, with "Aliens" (1986), "Poltergeist II: The Other Side" (1986), "Species" 1995 and "Prometheus" (2012) being just a few of the films Giger would work on throughout his long career in Hollywood. In 2013 Giger was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, thus forever cementing his status as one of the fantasy genre's most innovative and creative forces only a year before his death on May 13, 2014.