Feiler was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1918, and came to England in 1933. From 1936-39 he attended the Slade before being sent to Canada for internment. This was relatively brief, and he returned to teach at Radley and Eastbourne College, and then at the West of England College of Art from 1946.

His first visit in Cornwall was to St Ives in 1949, and from that time associated himself with artist friends there, moving slowly from representational art to greater abstraction in his work.

From 1960-75 he was Head of Painting at the College, and instituted a system whereby art students would spend a two-week field trip amongst artists in St Ives, in order for them to begin to understand the realities of the life as a creative practitioner. In 1968 he received an Arts Council Award. His system of field trips for students continued until his retirement in 1975.

He was married first to the landscape painter June MILES, with whom he had one son (Anthony) and two daughters, Helen FEILER and Christine FEILER, (both of whom are artist craftworkers, one a silversmith and textile designer, and the other a ceramicist). His second marriage was to the abstract painter Catharine ARMITAGE, with whom he has twin sons. He works now in the Trewarveneth studio that once belonged to Stanhope FORBES in Newlyn. In a recent exhibition catalogue (2009) at the Paisnel Gallery, London the collater comments that Feiler 'has always been concerned with the architecture of space...sensitive compositions using light and tone and most importantly texture.'

His work is in numerous international and national collections in the UK, Austria, Canada, France, New Zealand, and the USA. A comprehensive list is included in his 2011 Catalogue for 'A Retrospective' 2-23 April at the Lemon Street Gallery, Truro.