H.R. Giger (1940-2014) was a Swiss artist best known for his rather surreal and nightmarish airbrush technique representing humans and machines in a cold, interconnected and biomechanical relationship. His work has been profoundly influential. He was responsible for designing the Alien in the Alien movies and his work with the special effects team won him an Oscar in 1980. Necronomicon was his first major published compendium of images, originally released in 1977. It was actually this book that was given to Ridley Scott, who then hired Giger to work on Alien. This is the rare first American edition:
Here are a few classic Giger images:
