Camille Hilaire was born in Metz in 1916. Coming from a modest background, he first became a house painter, then began drawing and painting from life.

Not wanting to be forcibly conscripted into the German army as an Alsace-Lorraine native, he went into hiding and enrolled under a false name, Leblanc, at the Beaux-Arts in Paris during the Occupation. It was there that he became friends with André Lhote.

In 1947, Hilaire was appointed professor of drawing and decorative composition at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Art in Nancy, a position he held until 1958. He competed for the Prix de Rome in 1950 and won second prize. From 1950 to 1951, he was a resident at the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid.

Alternating between post-cubism and figuration, his works are brightly coloured and luminous. Camille Hilaire represented the nuanced expression of composition. Thus, starting from effective structures, he wielded power through colour and achieved an admirable and constant sensation of calm, breadth and grandeur by translating motifs and elements, which never prevented him from expressing a burning passion for creation and sharing.

As for landscapes, Hilaire knew how to dictate their structure without apparent constraint, imbuing them with the fresh, vibrant green that so often characterised his work. In this way, nature and the elements became a pretext for the artist to push colour to the point of achieving the desired effect.

He died at his property in Fourges, in the Eure department of Normandy, and was buried in the East Cemetery (Metz) in 2004.