What better way to start a four-part review of the Cybis ‘literature-based’ studies than with their interpretations of Shakespeare’s immortal characters? I shall leave it to my readers to judge whether or not they think that The Bard would be pleased! But first a quick word about the "Portraits in Porcelain" as Cybis categorized them. [...]
The circus theme was a popular one for Cybis porcelain; it was represented continuously in both human and animal studies ever since the first two in that genre were introduced in 1975. Only four of the circus sculptures were declared to be limited editions. Barnaby, an open edition introduced in 1975, was originally named ‘Barnaby’ [...]
Although Cybis never created any sort of 'maritime collection', a selection of their sculptures do fit into a seagoing theme – so, why not? The very first sea-based Cybis is also the only piece they ever made that specifically depicts a fish, although two other much-later pieces do include a fish as a decorative element. [...]
Completing the trilogy of Cybis equine reviews are the nine horses which were part of their ‘Carousel Collection’ over the decades. In fact, the series itself began with a carousel horse in 1973. (The other carousel animals are shown separately.) All but one of the limited-edition carousel equines were sculpted by Susan Clark Eaton. Heights [...]
The horse was featured throughout the Cybis studio’s history; a few equines even appear as early Papka pieces created in the 1940s. This post will focus only on the ‘real’ horse studies; the mythological equines are shown in Unicorns and Pegasi, and the Carousel Horses are profiled separately as well. I have sorted these Cybis [...]
The extremely popular unicorn collecting genre was not overlooked by Cybis, and in fact they did a rather nice job of it, too. That other fantasy equine, Pegasus, was not neglected but let’s take a look at the Cybis unicorns first. Unicorns The first mention of Cybis unicorns occurs in the 1970 museum exhibit catalog [...]
If you’ve managed to wade through the overviews of the 1950s Cybis madonna pieces you’ll be relieved to know that this one contains only a baker’s dozen! All of the sculptures shown below were introduced in 1960 or later. It’s interesting to see that although the studio’s first ten years produced a veritable population explosion [...]
(In order to keep this page to a manageable size, it now contains only the full-figure madonna pieces made by Cybis during the 1950s. The 1950s madonna busts and torsos have been spun off into their own separate post. If you are trying to identify a glazed-finish Cybis madonna bust or a torso that is [...]
Cybis produced ballet sculptures ever since the early days of the ‘modern’ studio; the earliest example was introduced in 1960. New ballerina sculptures in both limited and non-limited editions were issued through the 1980s and likely beyond. The fifteen designs are illustrated below in chronological order. Ballerina ‘Red Shoes’ was made both in decorated and [...]
There’s something so 'connected' about pink and blue, isn’t there? These are the classic ‘baby’ colors, they are complementary in the garden, and they simply play so nicely together. Perhaps that’s why Cybis chose to use them several times as the alternative color of a designated gallery-event sculpture. Sometimes a colorway switch can be notably [...]
THE CYBIS ARCHIVE 