HR Giger (1940-2014) is one of the outstanding figures in Swiss art and design history
celebrated around the world for his design of the fantastic creatures and eerie environments
that terrified moviegoers in Ridley Scott's 1979 science fiction film Alien . Yet very
little is known about Giger's childhood and youth in his native town of Chur. A trove of
photographs drawings by the young boy Hansruedi and early artworks that already reveal the
future of HR Giger's artistic force recently unearthed in the Giger family's former holiday
home in the Grisons now offer intimate insights into his early years until the early 1960s.
Richly illustrated with more than 230 images from that collection HR Giger: The Early Years
tells for the first time the story of those two decades before Giger decided to move to
Zurich and train as an architect and designer in 1962. Supplemented by brief texts as well as
by statements from his schoolmates friends and others these images form a lively picture of
that period: family episodes the Mickey Mouse adaptations Giger created at the age of ten his
growing love of jazz music photography and weapons the trips around Europe he took together
with his friends and the youth culture of Chur of the 1950s and 1960s that shaped him. The
volume will appeal to any fan of the extraordinary art and the fascinating personality of HR
Giger.
