The New Jersey State Museum (NJSM) in Trenton is one of the two institutions that contain the largest quantity of Cybis porcelains within their holdings. However, the histories of the museums, as well as the overall focus of their respective Cybis collections, are quite different. The NJSM, founded in 1895, is one of America's oldest [...]
Although this site is laser-focused on Cybis Porcelain, I would like to add some recently-discovered information about the first Boleslaw Cybis large-scale commercial venture which was the Cordey China Company. As I describe in my History of Cordey China post, this was a partnership between Boleslaw Cybis and two Pennsylvania businessmen, Harry Greenberg and Harry [...]
A cache of vintage documents recently obtained from the Syracuse University holdings contained a surprise: Two additional named companies associated with the Cybis studio! These business entities/brands were created after the establishment of the Cordey China Company but before the formal registration of Cybis Porcelain as a business entity in the state of New Jersey. [...]
It is with great sadness that I must report the passing of Cybis artist Susan Clark Eaton on May 22, 2025. She had been battling a recurrence of cancer since early this year. Although she already has an Artist Profile here in the Archive, this memorial page will delve deeper into her life and the [...]
I recently discovered a circa-2005 documentary that was created for Polish television, presenting a fascinating look at the backstory behind the creation of the Polish Pavilion murals for the 1939 World's Fair. It's also an in-depth look at the creators, i.e., the Brotherhood of Saint Luke itself, with some archival photos and documents that I [...]
In 1935, Boleslaw Cybis and Jan Zamoyski were tasked with creating a fresco painting for the interior of the Military Institute of Geography in Warsaw. The Military Institute is an amalgam of different museums and study locations; for example, there is the Military Institute of Medicine, the Military Institute of Armament Technology, and so on. [...]
A few years ago, David Armstrong (of Armstrong’s Gallery, one of the major Cybis retailers during the boom years) sent me some Cybis press photos and marketing literature from the 1970s and early 1980s. One of the most interesting was the instruction sheet that the studio sent to the retail galleries who wanted to host [...]
This second part of his Artist Profile will delve into his work after his 1965 departure from the Cybis porcelain studio. The Ispanky Studios After leaving Cybis, Ispanky found an investor named George Utley and opened his own studio. A 1973 article in the New York Times related that He bought an old garage in [...]
Laszlo Ispanky was one of only five artists who were ever publicly identified by name in Cybis advertising literature as having created Cybis sculptures (the others were Marja Cybis, Marylin Chorlton, Lynn Klockner Brown, and Patricia Eakin); their names appear in the early pages of the studio’s 1964 and 1965 catalogs. However, Ispanky is the [...]
The recent discovery of part of a circa-1950s Cybis wholesale price list contained a series of single Nativity figures that are entirely different from the 1950s Nativity Murals shown in the studio's published catalogs. This did not come as a complete surprise to me, though, because in 2021 I came across an unfamiliar figurine marked [...]
THE CYBIS ARCHIVE 