Cecilio Aviles Montalvo, Creator of ‘Cecilin y Coti’, Dies in Havana

Cecilio Avilés Montalvo passed away this Sunday in Havana. (OnCuba)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 21 March 2022 — The popular creator of Cecilín y Coti, Cecilio Avilés Montalvo, died this Sunday in Havana, according to the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (Uneac) after making it known on social networks by friends and relatives of the painter, advertising cartoonist and artist, animation, caricaturist and cartoonist.

The artist was awarded the National Award for Community Culture in 2010 and was a member of the Union of Journalists of Cuba (UPEC), whose former vice president, José Dos Santos, described him in these terms: “Excellent plastic and graphic journalism artist, as well as affable person, full of ideas that we shared on many occasions during my time at Upec. On more than one occasion I suggested that he group his participations from Wednesdays on Good Morning, of a great didactic nature, to collect them in an introductory volume to the caricature. I wish he had done it or that someone would do it because of its value as training for future followers of that complex although apparently simple art, of which he was a teacher.”

Avilés was born in Cienfuegos on December 5, 1944 and graduated in Art History at the University of Havana, in Painting and Modeling at the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts, Commercial Drawing and Graphic Design at the Diego Rivera Academy and in the School of Directors of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (Icrt). He also studied music and harmony at the Ignacio Cervantes Center.

However, his career began linked to journalism, at Juventud Rebelde and Pionero, where he was between 1968 and 1983. His book, Historietas, Reflections and Projections: 60 Cuban Graphic Narrators, also shows his interest in theorizing the cartoon and caricature.

In addition to the popular Cecilín, who has adventures with his parrot Coti and came to film and television, he created Marabú and Yami, a young journalist.

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