One might think that the only appearance of Cybis in the media was in advertising materials and occasional newspaper snippets, but that would fall short of the mark. Cybis porcelains have made cameo appearances within several works of fiction and nonfiction, plus at least one popular television series. Ideals Publishing Co. Gift Books The earliest [...]
Author: The Cybis Archive
Everything you ever wanted to know about Cybis porcelain, in one place: cybisarchive dot com (This is not a commercial site, and there are no ads or pop-ups. Ever.)
The Curious Chronology of the Cybis Award Bowl
One of the Cybis studio’s ‘new’ retail introductions during the 1990s was a decorative piece that was ultimately titled Cupid Bowl, Original Famous Cybis Award. However, I recently discovered that its first appearance – like many of their 1990s-2000s offerings – took place decades earlier. It has been very interesting to dissect the chronology of [...]
Cybis Goes to Italy
Throughout the Cybis studio’s history, their advertising photos followed a familiar pattern: backgrounds were either solid or shaded color blends, and when they weren’t, ‘props’ had more than enough bokeh to avoid distracting from the porcelain subject. The common denominator was that they were done within the confines of a professional photographer’s studio – with [...]
In Memoriam: Ira Jacobson, 1927-2021
Although my other profiles in this Archive focus only on people who worked at or for Cybis, I must now, with great sadness, recognize the passing of someone who was instrumental in forging that studio’s success: Ira Jacobson, owner of Brielle Galleries. In many ways, he was an important driving force that helped Cybis to [...]
One Cybis Goldfinch, Three Decorative Variations
The word ‘variation’, as it applied to Cybis porcelains, could have any of several meanings. It could refer to a single sculpture that was subsequently released, with additional decorative elements, as a new piece with a different name; the ‘warren’ of bunnies is a great example of that. The 1981 bunny Bon-Bon was especially prolific [...]
Cybis Collection Categories (or, Too Much of a Good Thing)
A feature (or a bug, depending on how you look at it) of the Cybis studio’s advertising strategy was to assign each retail sculpture to a named genre-category which they called a Collection. This approach was not fully adopted until almost two decades after the inception of the Cybis brand, but it would eventually run [...]
The Mercer County Community College Cybis Exhibit and Catalog
Until recently, one of the most elusive Cybis-related publications was the exhibit catalog of the sculptures that were donated to the Mercer County Community College in June 1975. I’m happy to say that, thanks to the helpful people at MCCC, I now have an electronic copy of this ‘publication unicorn’! The book is softcover, with [...]
Repairing Broken Cybis Porcelain: The Good, the Bad, and the Realistic
A fair percentage of the messages I receive through this website begin with ‘I have a damaged Cybis, how can I get it repaired?’ Given the fragile nature of these pieces and the vicissitudes of time, this is not surprising. Before I get into the good, bad, and realistic aspects of my answer to these [...]
Cybis Porcelain ‘Men in Hats’
This is a companion (or ‘brother’?) post to my 2018 Cybis Bonnet Girls. While compiling this I was surprised to discover that there were almost three times as many males wearing headgear (30) as females (11)! And that is without including any crowned Cybis figures or any of the North American Indians (because I feel [...]
Cybis Retailer-Event and Private-Commission Sculptures
Back in the heyday of art porcelain collecting, most purchasers belonged to one or more of three general categories: (a) They bought whatever sculptures they liked, budget permitting; (b) they focused mainly on certain genres, which the Cybis studio termed ‘Collections’ – more about those in a future post; and/or (c) they made their purchase [...]
THE CYBIS ARCHIVE 