Chris Foss

Chris Foss (b.1946)
Alien, Escape Module
watermarked with 20th Century Fox logo
diazotype print, ink on 20th Century Fox stock photo paper
27¹⁄₈ x 16¹⁄₈in. (69 x 41cm.)
executed in 1976

One of only two examples of a print executed for the personal collections of writer Dan O'Bannon and Chris Foss after the latter's original design for the 1979 film Alien.

When developing the science fiction horror Alien, writer Dan O'Bannon and director Ridley Scott hired artists H. R. Giger, Ron Cobb and Chris Foss to help bring the film to life. The present image, designed by Foss, was produced during the early stages of development, and relates to one of the final scenes in the film. When O'Bannon was writing the script in 1976, three years before the film arrived on the big screen, he envisaged the final adventure of Ellen Ripley, who would escape the main ship Nostromo via ejector vessel with an unbeknownst stowaway alien. Here Foss envisions this scene, the composition dynamically portraying the moment the protagonist breaks away from the famous spaceship. O'Bannon was so pleased with Foss's depiction that the writer had two copies of the image produced, one for himself, the other for the artist to keep. Remaining in Foss's collection ever since, the print not only encapsulates an iconic piece of science fiction film history, but equally displays a key moment in the development of Foss's signature style, the artist experimenting for the first time in the new medium of felt tip.