Hilaire Harzberg Hiler (July 16, 1898 – January 19, 1966) was an American artist, psychologist, and color theoretician who worked in Europe and United States during the mid-20th century.

Possessing both great height and a flamboyant personality, as well as a stammer and large ears, Hiler was a distinctive and charming character who felt at home anywhere.

[2][3] As an expatriate living in Paris in the 1920s, Hiler became friends with the literary crowd of Henry Miller, Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Hemingway, and Anaïs Nin.

"[5] Hiler had broad academic, artistic, and social interests; he occupied himself painting interior murals, performing jazz piano at nightclubs—often with his pet monkey, studying remote cultures, writing books[6] and magazine articles, designing theater costumes and sets, and carousing with his friends.

The first, in the main hall of the museum, recalls a playful, hallucinogenic dip into a richly populated aquatic landscape, and the other elucidates his color theories in the form of a circular, 120-color spectrum on the ceiling.

[1] The scenes depicted in the sub-aqueous painting present a fantastical blend architectural elements and mythical creatures, transporting viewers to the lost cities Mu and Atlantis.

His ceiling mural at the Maritime Museum represents his deduction of 30 sensational—rather than mathematical—color relationships in the form of a wheel, as well as their combinations with black, white, and gray.