Mervyn Napier Waller (1893 - 1972) was an Australian painter, muralist, mosaicist, and printmaker born on 19 June 1893 at Penshurst, Victoria. In 1913 he commenced study at the National Gallery School in Melbourne where he met Christian Yandell, (1894 - 1954), a fellow artist and student who he later married. Waller enlisted with the 22nd Battalion, AIF, in August 1915, and trained at the Royal Park Camp in Victoria before subsequently being transferred to the artillery. Napier and Christian were married in October 1915, and in May 1916 Napier embarked on HMTS Medic to England via Durban to complete his military training on Salisbury Plain.

At the end of 1916, Waller left for active service in France, serving with the 111th Howitzer Battery, 4th Division. During his service, Waller used his diary to make sketches. Waller took part in a number of battles before being severely wounded in May 1917 at Bullecourt and his right arm had to be amputated at the shoulder. However during his convalescence in France and England, Napier learnt to draw and write with his left hand, and upon his return to Australia in November 1917, he completed a series of drawings titled War Sketches on the Somme Front. This series were based on earlier sketches the artist had completed while on active service at the Western Front. The works were exhibited between 1918 and 1919 in major Australian cities, including Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart.

In 1926, Christian and Napier built and designed an Arts and Crafts style home in Ivanhoe, Melbourne, where they pursued their independent and collaborative artistic practices from multiple studio spaces. During the late 1920s and early 1930s Napier and Christian travelled to Europe to see mosaics in Italy, including those in Ravenna and Venice, as well as medieval stained-glass windows in the United Kingdom. Upon their return to Australia, Napier completed a number of high-profile public art murals and mosaic commissions including the mural Peace after Victory at the State Library of Victoria, which was completed in 1929; the Newspaper House mosaic on Collins Street in Melbourne completed in 1933. Christian Waller contributed to both projects. In 1935 Christian and Napier Waller amicably separated and continued to work alongside one another from their respective studios at the Waller House until the time of Christian Waller's death in 1954.

In 1937, the Australian War Memorial invited Napier Waller to submit designs for the proposed mosaics and stained glass windows scheme for the Hall of Memory. Waller was selected to design and install the mosaic on the basis of his reputation as a prominent large-scale mural artist and mosaicist in Melbourne. The stained glass windows were completed in 1951 and the mosaics installed by 1958. In January 1958 in Melbourne, Waller married Lorna Marion Reyburn, who was also an artist, and Napier Waller's studio assistant.

Napier Waller is considered one of Australia's most important artists of the twentieth century and due to his contribution to the visual arts he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (O.B.E) in 1953, and a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (C.M.G) in 1959. Napier Waller continued to live and work at the Waller House in Ivanhoe up until his death on 30 March 1972. Napier bequeathed the Waller House to the State of Victoria, which is currently maintained by the National Trust of Victoria.