Camille Hilaire was a French painter and weaver from Metz. During his studies at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and a period travelling through Spain and Italy, painting and weaving tapestries, he was drafted into the army. He was taken prisoner during the Second World War but escaped, returning to Paris under a false identity to continue his studies and meet his tutor, the cubist artist André Lhote.Hilaire became Lhote’s assistant and was later appointed professor of Beaux-Arts in Nancy and, subsequently, in Paris, until 1968. At this time, he was awarded the Prix de Venise and the Prix de la Casa de Velázquez and held his first exhibition in Paris in 1951 at the Galerie Valloton. He went on to exhibit regularly at international art fairs in Geneva, Cannes and Deauville. His art is full of colour, calm and grace.