Hubert Hilscher was born into a Polonised family of German origin. As a soldier of the Home Army, he fought in the Warsaw Uprising (under the pseudonym ‘Zaremba’, his insurgent biographical note can be found on the website of the Warsaw Rising Museum). Originally it seemed he would become an architect, since he finished a high school for construction trades. He often said that this might have been the reason why he liked geometric and modular motifs and drafting methods of design. Health problems disqualified him from military service as a result of which, luckily, in 1949 he started attending the State Academic School of Plastic Arts, since he was interested in printing. When he was in his second year, the school was merged with the Academy of Fine Arts. He studied under Tadeusz Kulisiewicz and graduated in 1955.
After graduation Hilscher worked for the Art and Graphic Publishing House WAG, which provided patronage for poster artists. Between 1961 and 1970 he was its art director. In 1962, he started working for the bimonthly Projekt, also as an art director, and worked on this position until 1983, when the magazine stopped being published. Hilscher designed posters, books and logotypes (for example for Centrum Department Store in 1967). During the period of martial law in Poland under communist regime, he cooperated with the Warsaw Archdiocese Museum and independent publishing houses (Nowa, Przedświt and Krąg).
He was one of the most colourful and amusing graphic designers of the so-called Polish School of Posters. At the same time he was very restrained and balanced in choosing his artistic means. His colleagues recalled him as a modest, refined man who was utterly focused on his work.
Hilscher’s posters were shown in Vienna (1964), Düsseldorf (1968), Berlin, Bratislava, Prague, Budapest, Sofia (1969), and Royan (1972), among others. His works received a warm welcome and were awarded with a prize at the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts (1964), a silver medal at Mostra Internazionale di Manifesto Turistico in Milan (1967 and 1970) and the Mayor of the City of Brno Award at the International Poster Biennial (1974). Hilscher was a multiple winner of the Best Poster Prize (1973, 1975, 1980) and the award for the Most Beautiful Book in competitions organised by the Polish Association of Book Publishers.
Hilscher is an important figure in the history of the International Poster Biennale in Warsaw, since he was both its organizer and participant. From 1966 to 1983 he was a member of the Organising Committee. In the interview he gave for Projekt in 1978 he said something which seemed surprising at that time: