Collectors of art porcelain may not have known Patricia Eakin’s name, but they were undoubtedly familiar with her work. She was yet another of the unsung heroes of the industry.
Patricia Jean Eakin was born on October 25, 1914 in Virginia. She had an older sister, Kathleen, and would have a younger brother, Birch, after the family moved to Washington state; this is a 1952 photograph of their first home there, to which they moved in 1918.
Her father, Henry Minor Eakin, was a geologist. Born in 1883 in Kenard, Nebraska, he came to work for the United States Geological Survey and mapped large portions of Alaska and western Canada. In fact, Alaska’s Mt. Henry Eakin was named in his honor; it is more than 4000 feet tall and is located 42 miles north/northeast of the town of Tanana, within the Ray Mountain Range which Henry mapped in 1913.
Pat’s mother was the former Ruth Emma Hitt, born in 1890 in Evanston, Illinois.
Patricia’s brother Birch recalled that when the family first moved to Alaska, his father converted a former logging camp mess hall into a home. They later moved to a 160-acre farm, from which Patricia and her siblings had to walk two miles to the nearest one-room schoolhouse. In 1926, while their father was still engaged in mapping parts of Alaska, their mother drove with the three children to Washington, D.C.; their grandfather was a Federal judge in that city.
Unfortunately, we don’t know the year or circumstances that brought Patricia to New Jersey during the 1930s, but it may have been after her father died, at age 53, in October 1936. At that time, Pat was 22 years old.
This photo shows Pat (at far right) with her mother Ruth (center) and sister Kathleen. It is undated, but from the clothing and hair styles appears to be from the 1940s. The man in the photo is probably Henry Eakin.
In these Artist Profiles, I normally show the artist’s Cybis pieces first – but because Pat Eakin began working in porcelain during the 1930s, I am going to show her early designs first.
The Lenox Ladies by Patricia Eakin (1939-1950s)
The first record that we have of Pat Eakin’s work in porcelain comes from Lenox China, in Trenton. Lenox was the first notable American company to introduce detailed, hand-made porcelain figurines aimed at what would later be called the ‘collector market’. In 1939, Lenox began producing ballerina figures created by Patricia.
This blue ballerina is a typical example. The circa-2016 eBay seller described it as “Incredibly intricate with articulated fingers the width of a strand of yarn and a skirt so thin you can almost see through it. Hand painted with tiny pink rosebuds.” Indeed, the thinness of the porcelain was a hallmark of these Eakin ballerinas. They are about 6” tall and were produced intermittently between 1939 and 1953.
The ballerinas proved so popular that Lenox introduced a new line of figures by Patricia, called the ‘American Costume Series.’ In 1954, Lenox moved to a larger and more modern factory building. According to the Lenox website,
Perhaps the most outstanding achievement was by the artist Patricia Eakin, who “dressed” her delicate figurines in costumes of paper-thin porcelain that were painstakingly modeled and applied by hand. To keep pace with demand, Lenox built the most advanced ceramics factory of the time in 1954, in Pomona, N.J.
The American Costume Series featured women in historical costumes. Each design was named, and was made in different colorways and decorations. Even more importantly, many examples have Pat’s initials, PJE, on the underside as a mold impression.
Here is the Colonial Lady in two colorways.
A collage of four differently-decorated Mistress Mary.
A trio of Natchez Belle colorways.
A Southern Belle with purple decoration, and another with ultramarine blue.
Each figure was stamped on the underside with the current Lenox logo and the figurine’s design name. Not all of them will also have the PJE monogram impression, however.
Floradora in two colorways.
Three very different colorways of Prima Donna.
A detail photo of a fourth example. This is not the same piece as the central one in the previous photo.
Pat’s figures for Lenox were not all females; here is The Dandy. There were also some child figures.
There were other (non-Costume Series) designs as well. This is Lady Diana on horseback.
This one is titled The Sportswoman.
The Reader was a very popular figure, here shown in two very different colorways.
Pat Eakin for Holland Mold Company and the Boehm studio (1950s)
As was typical in those days and that industry, artists often freelanced for various studios and manufacturers. The Holland Mold Company and the Boehm studio were two such companies who bought Pat’s work. At least one of her Holland mold designs became one of the Cybis studio’s best-known religious figures; given the fact that almost all of Cybis’ 1950s items were cast from molds that they bought from either Holland or Atlantic Molds, the odds are that there are many Pat Eakin creations within what we know as ‘1950s Cybis’!
It was common knowledge among her friends, colleagues and family that quite a few of the 1940s and 1950s Boehm pieces that were publicly attributed to Edward Marshall Boehm were actually designed by Patricia. An article published in the Trenton Times after Pat’s funeral includes this:
Rebecca Whitefield, a decorator and model for years for Pat’s works, said Pat had objected to the publicity given in recent years to the late, well-known sculptor Edward Marshall Boehm, charging that he had taken credit for many of Pat Eakin’s creations: “I knew Pat did most of the work for him.”
Patricia created the mold for the Boehm polo player that was presented by President Eisenhower to England’s Prince Philip when he and Queen Elizabeth visited the USA for four days in October 1957.
The 1950 US Census shows Patricia Eakin living at 79 North Capitol Street in Trenton in April. At that time she is 35 years old and her occupation is given as ‘Proprietor, Ceramic Decorating Studio.’ That year, she and freelance sculptor Harry Burger established a studio on Fairfield Avenue, in Lawrence Township. Harry was actually Pat’s protégé, although both of them had originally been mentored by George Warren Fichter. Patricia and Harry both had strong personalities, which led to an eventual parting of the ways.
Pat was a tall, statuesque woman of 5 feet 10 inches in height. Despite her sometimes Bohemian taste in clothing, certain ideals of deportment never left her: One day, while calming walking amongst typical midtown Manhattan traffic, she commented that “A lady does not scurry.” During the 1970s she lived on Stokeley Avenue in Trenton.
Cybis Sculptures by Patricia Eakin (1950s-early 1970s)
Unfortunately, very few of the pieces that Pat designed for Cybis have been positively identified as hers. There were undoubtedly more of them than I am aware of and show here. In 2023 I was able to find some contact information for Pat’s two grand-nephews and sent snail-mail letters asking for any information regarding her Cybis pieces, but never received answers.
The originally-Holland/later-Cybis design by Pat was the one that Cybis began to sell as Madonna, Queen of Angels starting in 1957.
As related in the Will the Real Queen of Angels Please Stand Up post, the basic (bust) mold was a Holland Mold item, which during the early 1950s Cybis used for their Mother Most Admirable (design # 201); a white bisque and a bisque color example are shown here. When Marylin Chorlton decided to add a crown of roses and mount her on a base, she became the new introduction ‘Queen of Angels.’
I would never have known who originally created this Madonna bust if I had not stumbled upon an ad that Cybis placed in The New Yorker in 1962. It clearly says ‘sculptured by Patricia Eakin.’ The following year’s ad does not have the attribution line; sadly, Cybis had become ‘allergic’ to publicly identifying the actual creators of the sculptures they made. I have gleaned nuggets of information about a few, however.
Pat Eakin and Marylin Chorlton collaborated on the very important project of creating a porcelain Holy Child of Prague for installation within the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Washington, D.C. This is that actual piece in situ.
The studio issued a retail limited edition of 25 in 1957. See this post for a complete history of it, and detailed photos and descriptions. This was one of the very first limited editions that the Cybis studio introduced; before that year, the concept of Limited and Non-Limited (‘open’) editions had not been used by them.
Another Pat Eakin/Marylin Chorlton collaboration was the Turtle Doves ‘Doves of Peace’, which was a limited edition of 500 in 1957. In June 1979, one of these was presented by President Jimmy Carter to Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev.
One of the earliest of the Cybis studio’s Children to Cherish collection, the open edition First Flight was introduced in 1963. During the early 1970s it was chosen as the studio’s annual retailer-event piece; the blue bird was replaced by a small bouquet of flowers, and it was offered as First Bouquet.
When Cybis received a commission from AVCO Embassy pictures to create a sculpture of Katherine Hepburn to celebrate her Oscar-winning role as Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter, it was Patricia Eakin who created it. This was an edition of 750 in 1971 and is 13” tall.
Remembering Pat’s Life and Career
Patricia Jean Eakin passed away on August 9, 1976 in Trenton, at age 61. Her memorial gathering at the Inn of Trenton was perhaps as unusual as her life had been; these are excerpts from the Trenton Times article that described it:
The city hotel was picked after [the] funeral director…noted that the Board of Mortuary Science did not allow alcohol in funeral parlors. “We can’t serve coffee either”, he said.
There was ice in the bathroom sink for the mixed drinks, several fifths of bourbon, scotch and gin, plus mixes, hors d’oerves of cheese cubes, potato chips and pretzels.
“Pat would not have approved of the traditional memorial service,” said her brother, Birch Hitt Eakin.., “what preachers say at memorials was good 50 years ago, but not for Pat.”
“She was a genius,” said Anna Marie MacCotter of Browns Mills, a friend of 30 years and co-worker.
As a young artist, Harry [Burger] said, she gained considerable recognition in the ceramics industry for creating the [Lenox] figurines while working on a research project at President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Norris, Tenn., dam project. Harry, who also considers his best work to be in figurines, said she was adept at forming birds, animals, and humans.
Surviving artists from the Cybis studio have told me that Marylin and Joe Chorlton became close friends with Patricia over the decades. It is very possible that Marylin could not attend the funeral because she was battling late-stage cancer at that time. Cybis painter Anna Marie ‘Ginny’ MacCotter and supervisor Dorothy Kaminski are mentioned in the Trenton Times article as attendees, so perhaps other Cybis artists were there as well. Patricia’s mother Ruth passed away in 1970, and her brother Birch in 2018.
It is my hope that, despite the fact that Patricia Jean Eakin was not given the credit that she was due by the studios and companies (except for Lenox, and one Cybis advertisement) for whom she sculpted, this Profile will serve in some way to make today’s collectors more aware of her legacy.
Name Index of Cybis Sculptures
Visual Index (for human figures/busts only)
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