Several hundred people have attended a memorial service for the Swiss surrealist painter HR Giger who died two weeks ago. The creator of nightmarish biomechanics was praised as an inspiration - albeit underestimated by the Swiss art establishment.

Tom Gabriel Fischer, a close friend and musician, said those people who refuse to take HR Giger’s works seriously are missing out on “infinitely much”.

Other guests at the assembly at the Fraumünster – one of Zurich’s main churches – described Giger’s work as “so dark, but also so beautiful” and the artist as “a warm hearted person who could scare us but who had a beautiful soul”.

Hans-Ruedi Giger, best known as the creator of iconic visual effects for the 1979 film Alien, died aged 74 after a fall in his house in Zurich on May 12.

He was buried in the cemetery of Gruyère last Sunday near the Giger museum in western Switzerland.

The museum, which opened in 1998, showcases the largest collection of the artist's work on permanent public display, encompassing his paintings, sculptures, furniture and film designs, dating from the early 1960's till the present day.

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