"The Orchard in Spring" 
Camille Hilaire (1916 -2004)\
Oil on canvas
18 1/8 x 15 (24 1/2 x 22 5/8) inches  
 
This painting by Camille Hilaire with its signature greens and deconstructed cubist landscape, truly exhibits all the best attributes of what a collector desires for a Camille Hilaire painting. A master of composition, the artist manages to add calm and passion to his canvases.
 
Camille Hilaire (1916 -2004) artist gifts became apparent at a very early age. He picked up his first paint brush at a  very young age and by the time he turned fifteen years old, he discovered the work of Albrecht Dürer in the Metz city library and began making copies of those masterworks. He hung some of his drawings in a bookshop which drew the attention of Jean Giono and Nicolas Untersteller, the director of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. It was then that he enrolled at Beaux-Arts. 
 
Thanks to winning an art scholarship, Hilaire travelled around Spain and Italy in 1933 and 1934 and drew inspiration from the art he encountered. Both his painting and tapestry express the beauty and rich diversity of the places through which he travelled. 

During World War II, Hilaire was drafted into the army and participated in the campaigns of France. He was taken prisoner though he managed to escape, eventually returning to Paris in early 1941. Condemned to secrecy, he enrolled under a false name at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris during the Occupation. 

In 1942–1943, while remaining at Beaux-Arts, he also came under the tutelage of the Cubist artist André Lhote, with whom he became friends. Soon after their acquaintance, Hilaire became Lhote’s studio assistant. 
He was then appointed professor of Beaux-Arts in Nancy, where he taught from 1947 to 1958, and then École of Beaux-Arts Paris until 1968. 

He was awarded the Prix de Venise in 1948 and the Prix de la Casa de Velázquez in 1950.
He held his first exhibition in Paris in 1951 at the Gallerie Valloton. He then exhibited at the preeminent international art fairs in Geneva, Cannes and Deauville. 

Camille Hilaire is subtle in his composition. He did away with efficient structures, he held power with color and achieved a wonderful, consistent sense of calm, amplitude and greatness by translating patterns and elements, which never prevented him from expressing a burning passion for creating and sharing. 
 
His nudes were remarkable, with perfect curves, coiled with charm and set in a context in which their sensual fullness imposed itself with provocative grace. As for his landscapes, Camille Hilaire could determine the structure without apparent constraints, overlaying a fresh, spicy green that is so characteristic of them. Thus, nature and elements become the pretext upon which the artist "pushed" the color to get the effect felt. As for his tapestries, his job as a graphic designer and his willingness to explore are mingled in splendid works that draw attention by virtue of their technical execution of pure harmony and that have just as surprising an outcome as the artist's lithographs. Hilaire's mature paintings reveal influences from Cubism but without the rigidity typical of the early years of the movement.  
 
One of the interior walls of the cafeteria of the Collège Georges-de-La-Tour, at Place du Roi-George in Metz, is decorated with a bucolic fresco painted by Camille Hilaire, which is impressive in its size and beauty. It was saved during modernization of the building. 

Over time, a dozen monographs have been devoted to him as well as documentaries and films. He leaves behind a large body of work, stamped with the seal of seduction. Hilaire has strongly influenced the French painters of the mid-twentieth century. 
 
Camille Hilaire participated in numerous collective exhibitions in Paris including Salon d’Automne, Salon des Indépendants, Salon des Tuileries, Salon de Mai, Salon des Peintres Témoins de leur Temps. He also exhibited abroad. Solo exhibitions include Paris (1951, 1957, 1961, 1965); New York (1954 and 1956; Geneva (1958). He received numerous awards: a travel grant from the French State (1947); Venice prize (1949) Antral and Casa Velázquez prizes (1950); Prix de la Société des Amateurs d’Art (1958).
 
The works of Camille Hilaire can be found in numerous museum collections.