Gat Perich international award winner 1997
Cesc. Premi Honorífic.
Francesc Vila Rufas, Cesc was born in the Barcelona district of Sant Gervasi, in 1927. His father, Joan Vila, was also a draftsman and had published regularly in the Catalan press during the first decades of the century, using the pseudonym "Ivory."
At thirteen, Cesc entered the Escola Massana and at fifteen held his first exhibition of humorous drawings in the Sala Rovira. In 1952, following a new exhibition of drawings at the Sala Jaimes, he was hired by the Diario de Barcelona to draw the daily cartoon. For ten years, Cesc worked on a magazine published by Catalan press, entitled La vida en broma, and some of these cartoons were collected in a book with the same title, which was published in 1955. Two years earlier he had founded and directed the humorous magazine Tururut!, with cartoons by Muntañola, Peñarroya, Escobar, Conti, Castanys and other artists of the moment.
Cesc was asked to draw for the newspaper Tele/Exprés at the time of its launch, and this became El Correo Catalán. He combined these daily cartoon collaborations with magazines like Gaceta ilustrada, Mundo, Serra d'Or, Tele/estel, Por Favor, Cavall Fort, Catalunya Música, while holding exhibitions, drawing advertising collaborations for foreign press (Paris Match, Pardon o Punch), and book publishing. He stopped collaborating with El Correo Catalán to devote his time to painting, but reappeared a few years later in Catalan language with the launch of the Catalan newspaper Avui.
In 1970 he won the Ciutat de Barcelona Prize, in 1998 he joined the Reial Acadèmia de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi and in 1997 he was awarded The International Gat Perich Humour Award.