Li Tobler

Li Tobler
Li Tobler with Voice of America figures (1968)
Born	1948 Switzerland
Died	19 May 1975 (aged 27) Zürich, Switzerland
Occupation	Actress, artist, model
Partner(s)	H. R. Giger

Li Tobler (1948 – 19 May 1975) was a Swiss stage actress, better-known as the lover and muse of painter H. R. Giger, who featured her in much of his work. Two of his major paintings were portraits of Li, and her face can also be recognised in some of his semi-abstract subjects where man and machine are fused into one.

Li and Giger first lived together in squalor, often in condemned buildings. Although theirs was an open relationship, it remained deeply intense, and creatively inspiring to Giger. But Li suffered from emotional insecurity, heavy drug-dependence and physical exhaustion from theatrical tours. She committed suicide (by gunshot) at age 27 as a result of constant depression. Some claimed that she was affected by the morbid atmosphere of Giger's works. According to Giger, she had wished her life to be short and intense.

Not much is known of Li Tobler's early life. She was born in Switzerland in 1948. In 1966, at the age of eighteen, she met artist H. R. Giger while she was studying acting in K. Rellstab's drama studio in Zürich. According to Giger, she had "an enormous vitality and a great appetite for life" and wished her life to be "short and intense". Tobler was living in a very small and dirty apartment with her then-boyfriend, actor Paul Weibel, a friend of Giger. Giger, having only just graduated from the School of Arts and working as a designer, asked to move in with them, which they promptly accepted. Tobler, Giger and Weibel, in terrible economic conditions, shared the apartment in the following months, despite its numerous inconveniences. After Weibel went abroad for professional reasons, the friendship between Tobler and Giger gradually developed into a romance. In 1967, the couple moved to the attic of a condemned building nearby. After it was torn down in 1968, they moved to another condemned house.

Meanwhile, following her graduation from K. Rellstab's drama school, Tobler started working in the Neumarkt. In 1969, she was chosen by the Stadtheater theatre of St. Gallen, a city almost 50 km from Zürich. During this period they could only meet up on weekends. Tobler remained a member of the Stadtheater stage for two seasons and in 1970 she returned to Zürich. Due to her ongoing financial problems, she was obliged to move in with a friend of hers, though Giger was also living in a flat nearby. However, a few months later, in April, a small inheritance left to Giger by an uncle of his allowed the couple to buy a house in the suburbs (specifically, in Oerlikon) and settle together again. Tobler went on to act for the Kellertheater theatre in Baden canton Aargau.