David de Hilster
| David de Hilster | |
|---|---|
 De Hilster with his paintings, January 2026
| |
| Painter · Draftsman · Digital artist · Documentary filmmaker · Samba musician | |
| Personal information | |
| Born | November 13, 1959 (age 67) Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Based in | Delray Beach, Florida |
| Spouse(s) | Doris de Hilster (m. 1989) |
| Children | Luanda Lia de Hilster |
| Career | |
| Education | Ohio State University New College, Oxford (summer program, 1980) Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro (c. 1987–1990) |
| Degree(s) | Bachelor's degree in Mathematics, Ohio State University Master of Arts (M.A.) in Linguistics, Ohio State University |
| Years active | 1973–present |
| Known for | "Intellectual Graffiti"; Einstein Wrong – The Miracle Year; SambaLá Samba School |
| Notable works | Figure in Space (1989) Rio Graffiti (1993) Einstein Wrong – The Miracle Year (2013) Northeastern Walls (2026) |
| Art & design | |
| Medium | Pencil, crayon, acrylic and oil, finger painting, assemblage, digital art |
| Music | |
| Instruments | Surdo, vocals; earlier piano and trumpet |
| Associated acts | SambaLá Samba School; Unidos do Mundo |
| Writing | |
| Books | Principia Mathematica 2 (2021, with Bob de Hilster) |
| Recognition & links | |
| Other work | Computational linguist; co-creator of NLP++ and VisualText |
| Website | dehilster.com |
David de Hilster (born November 13, 1959) is an American visual artist, documentary filmmaker, samba musician and computer scientist. His visual art covers pencil and crayon drawing, painting, assemblage and digital work, including a style he calls "Intellectual Graffiti". He directed the documentary Einstein Wrong – The Miracle Year (2013), and in 1994 he co-founded the SambaLá Samba School in Long Beach, California, with his wife, designer Doris de Hilster.[1][2]
Early life
De Hilster was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan.[3] He grew up in Galion, Ohio, and his family moved to Worthington, Ohio, in 1970. He started drawing at age three. He took his first art class at age eight in Galion, where his teacher recognized his skill. At thirteen he took summer art lessons in Worthington, and his teacher there said he was working at a college level. In those lessons he painted his first canvas, the acrylic Geometry.[2] He studied piano from age eight and trumpet from age nine, and played trumpet in his high school marching band and pit orchestra.[4]
Education
- Worthington, Ohio high school: trumpet in the marching band and pit orchestra
- Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio: Bachelor's degree in Mathematics; Master of Arts in Linguistics (computational linguistics). He also studied architecture.
- New College, Oxford, England: summer program (1980)
- Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro (c. 1987–1990): life drawing
At Ohio State University he studied architecture, mathematics and linguistics. He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and a Master of Arts in linguistics.[2][3] In 1980 he attended a summer program at New College, Oxford, where he drew the college's cloisters and rooftops.[2] From about 1987 to 1990 he lived in Rio de Janeiro and studied life drawing at the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage. According to de Hilster, a teacher there pushed him from black-and-white realism into colour.[2]
Visual art
De Hilster's Rio period produced pencil sketches of the city and crayon works, including Figure in Space (1989), which he considers the most important work of his career, and Doris' Eyes (1990).[2][5] Back in the United States, he says he was accepted into the young-artist rental and sales gallery of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the early 1990s.[2]
Around 1992 he and Doris moved into an artist's loft in Long Beach, California, where he held his first show. He worked in artificial intelligence by day and painted at night. Work from 1991 to 1993 includes:[2][5]
- acrylic and oil paintings, some painted live to jazz piano: Insect, Troubadour, Don Quixote, Jazz Black and White
- drawings scratched into wet paint with a coat hanger: Corner Kick, Remote Control
- finger paintings: Three Faces of Eve, Three Faces of Adam
- assemblages built from electronic parts: Hippo, Computer Hand
Some of these were shown and sold in Doris de Hilster's clothing store in Long Beach.[2]
After his daughter was born in 2005 he made art less often, mostly pencil portraits of family members.[2] In 2024 he returned to Intellectual Graffiti, a style he first tried in Rio Graffiti (1993). It overlays figurative portraits with computer code, words, digital graffiti and code-generated particles, with hidden "easter eggs" for the viewer to find.[6] His 2026 project Northeastern Walls places digital portraits of people from Northeastern University's Miami campus onto photographs of the murals in Miami's Wynwood district.[7] His online gallery lists about fifty works from 1973 to 2026, and he takes portrait commissions.[5]
Film
In 2004 de Hilster began work on a documentary for the 2005 centenary of Albert Einstein's "miracle year". It starred his mother, Patricia de Hilster, and her challenge to relativity.[8] The finished 91-minute film, Einstein Wrong – The Miracle Year, which he produced, directed and edited, premiered on December 7, 2013, at the Arts Theater in Long Beach.[9][10] The film also records the birth of his daughter, Luanda.[11] Since 2017 he has also run the Dissident Science YouTube channel.[3]
Samba
De Hilster learned samba while living in Brazil and speaks fluent Portuguese. In March 1994 he and Doris founded the SambaLá Samba School in Long Beach. He served as its president, music director, lead singer (puxador) and surdo drummer.[4] His other samba work includes:[4][3]
- creating the World Samba web pages (1997)
- co-producing Unidos do Mundo (2000–2001), an international samba school that paraded in Rio de Janeiro's Sambadrome. In 2000 he sang there with Neguinho da Beija-Flor.
- producing the Brazilian Street Carnaval of Long Beach
- producing Brazilian Day Los Angeles with Doris and the Brazilian consulate
After the family moved to South Florida, SambaLá paraded in Boca Raton and Pompano Beach.[4]
Other work
Outside the arts, de Hilster has worked in computational linguistics and artificial intelligence since the 1980s, at Battelle, McDonnell Douglas, TRW and LexisNexis. With Amnon Meyers he co-created the NLP++ programming language and the VisualText development environment, which were released as open source.[12][13] He is an adjunct professor at Northeastern University's Miami campus.[14] He also co-founded and is president of the John Chappell Natural Philosophy Society. With his father, Bob de Hilster, he wrote Principia Mathematica 2 (2021).[3][15]
Personal life
De Hilster met his wife, the Brazilian designer Doris de Hilster, in Rio de Janeiro, and they married in 1989. Their daughter, Luanda Lia de Hilster (born 2005), is a musical theatre performer.[4][3] The family moved from California to South Florida in the mid-2010s.[2]
Selected works
| Year | Title | Medium |
|---|---|---|
| c. 1973 | Geometry | Acrylic on canvas |
| 1980 | New College Rooftops | Pencil |
| 1987 | Bonde | Pencil |
| 1989 | Figure in Space | Crayon |
| 1990 | Doris' Eyes | Crayon |
| 1991–93 | Insect; Troubadour; Don Quixote | Acrylic/oil, painted live to jazz |
| 1993 | Three Faces of Eve; Three Faces of Adam | Finger painting |
| 1993 | Hippo | Assemblage |
| 1993 | Rio Graffiti | Mixed media; first "Intellectual Graffiti" |
| 2013 | Einstein Wrong – The Miracle Year | Documentary film (91 min) |
| 2025 | Luanda as Adelaide | Digital (Intellectual Graffiti) |
| 2026 | de Hilster Self Portrait 2026 | Digital (Intellectual Graffiti) |
| 2026 | Northeastern Walls | Digital series |
References
- ↑ "David de Hilster". dehilster.com.Retrieved 2026-11-06.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 "Artist". dehilster.com.Retrieved 2026-11-06.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 "David de Hilster". Natural Philosophy Wiki.Retrieved 2026-11-06.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 "Sambista". dehilster.com.Retrieved 2026-11-06.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Gallery". dehilster.com.Retrieved 2026-11-06.
- ↑ "Intellectual Graffiti". dehilster.com.Retrieved 2026-11-06.
- ↑ "Northeastern Walls: David de Hilster Brings the Husky Community to Wynwood". dehilster.com(2026-03).
- ↑ "Documentary highlights physics' 'miracle year'". phys.org(2005-09-22).
- ↑ "Film Maker". dehilster.com.Retrieved 2026-11-06.
- ↑ "Einstein Wrong – The Miracle Year". The D-Word.
- ↑ "Bio". luanda.dehilster.com.
- ↑ "Artificial Intelligence". dehilster.com.Retrieved 2026-11-06.
- ↑ "VisualText". GitHub.
- ↑ "Teacher". dehilster.com.Retrieved 2026-11-06.
- ↑ "Author". dehilster.com.Retrieved 2026-11-06.
External links
- dehilster.com – official website and gallery
- David de Hilster on IMDb
- Dissident Science on YouTube
- David de Hilster on the Natural Philosophy Wiki