Ernesto Milanés Ruiz

This Cuban artist specializes in making humidors with original designs, fine woods that manage to preserve the aroma of Havana cigars.

"My work has a characteristic stamp: they are sculptures, functional works of art. I love that you can buy a piece and talk with your friends about how it was made; there are some to which I add music and I call them 'conversational pieces,' people really enjoy them," explains Ernesto Milanés, an artist who takes advantage of the forms that originally come with furniture (his working materials), some of which are over a century old.

Ernesto Milanés was born in Santiago de Cuba, and studied at the Elementary School of Plastic Arts and at the San Alejandro academy, specializing in sculpture. For years, he has dedicated himself to handcrafting humidors.

"Since I was 14 years old I would dress in a suit and put a cigar in my mouth to appear older and thus enter the cabarets," he says about his foray into the tobacco world.

Milanés' humidors are more than wooden containers: he creates works of art with original designs, fine woods that manage to preserve the aroma of Havana cigars. "If you're invited to see an exhibition of humidors, you automatically think of the cigar box, but I make large pieces, so much so that making them is easy, moving them is what complicates my life a bit."

It was in 2008 that he received an invitation from the Casa del Habano de Partagás to participate in a renowned auction: "They offered me to donate a piece for a festival in Cuba, where pieces are auctioned, and that money goes to public health, I donated something small."

That work ended up in the hands of a buyer who gave an impulse to his career, and now his pieces are admired throughout the world and his works have been acquired by world leaders and renowned actors.

Among the sculptures of Mexican characters made by Ernesto Milanés stand out those of Emiliano Zapata, Cantinflas, Juan Gabriel, Jacobo Zabludovsky and Chespirito. Furthermore, his work has led him to create works for Pope Francis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and for Dyango, one of his favorite singers, to dedicate some words to him during a concert: "This song, which is beautiful, he dedicated to a fellow artist, to Don Ernesto Milanés, a person who paints like the gods."

Milanés assures that in Cuba you don't work with what you want, but with what you can: "I buy an old door and prepare that cedar. There came a moment during these eight months (of confinement) when I had nothing, but later I generated a lot of work."

"Everything I have earned has been through working. I was getting to know people in the art world," adds the painter, "because of this I have met wonderful people; in this world there is no crisis." For Ernesto, his work is not a job, "I like what I do, I enjoy it."

Life has to go on...

My life has to go on after these eight months, my life has to go on, because I missed Mexico so much, so much.

His trademark is functional works of art
M: You have to work with what you have. Look, I made this one for Arnold Schwarzenegger and I made this one for the Pope, but they made me remove the cigar from it. Something I like is that whenever they ask you what your best piece is, you respond that it's the one you still have to make. That's right, I always respond that it's the next one, you always have to surpass yourself. Famous artists who fail are those who, when fame arrives, make crap, you can't do that because you always have to surpass yourself.

How do you get inspired? It seems interesting to me that a coffee maker could be inside a piece, that seems very exciting to me

M: The most important thing is not to let fame go to your head. I eat the same dinner at a restaurant as I do a street taco.

When did you consider yourself an artist?

I always said as a kid that I was going to be an artist, I had a very comfortable stage and when I studied at the School of Art, they kicked me out of plastic arts and kicked me out for misbehaving. You also realize it when people want to meet you, but life is about working and not sitting down, you have to keep going, keep working always, surpass yourself.

Some recognitions

2015

The National Association of Radio Announcers presented him with the Golden Microphone, "for his artistic career in Mexico as a universal painter and sculptor."

He was honored with the title of Doctor Honoris Causa for his artistic career in the Senate Chamber of Mexico City.

2016

He left his mark in the Gallery of the Stars, in Mexico City.

2017

He received the title of Doctor among Doctors from the "American Cultural Institute" University of Mexico City.

2023