Ernest "Erni" Cabat (b. New York, New York, 1914) was an American artist.

Cabat studied art formally in New York in the 1920 and early 1930s. Before starting a decades-long career in advertising, ceramics and painting . He worked in Manhattan for a number of significant advertising firms and industrial design studios before moving to Tucson, Arizona in 1942. In Southern Arizona he joined with Norval Gill to start Cabat-Gill Advertising Agency, the first advertising agency in Tucson. The firm's work created and influenced the regional and charming mid-century brand of Arizona and the southwest. The firm developed and managed travel and marketing campaigns throughout Arizona and New Mexico. In addition to his professional design work Cabat was a sculptor, ceramicist and painter who won numerous awards and whose work is housed in various museums and private collections throughout the United States.

Life and work

Cabat's artistic prowess was in part his ability to blend national graphic design trends with regional iconography, southwest colors and illustration to create a visual idiom that captured the flavor of mid-centiry American southwest. Thorough his firm Cabat-Gill he influenced the graphic aspects of southwestern advertising including TV, radio, newspaper, magazines and marketing ephemera.

He ceramic works were characteristic of the post WW-II modern era utilizing shapes colors and forms that have become synonymous with the mid-century modern movement.

Towards the end of his career Cabat wrote and illustrated numerous publications and books on southwestern themes.

Cabat was married to Rose Cabat, a significant and influential mid-century ceramic artist. He died at the age of 80 in November 1994 in Tucson, Pima County, Arizona.