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 [...]
Cybis had a continuous history of child head/portrait busts through most of the studio's existence. All but three were attached to a wood base, and all were between 9” and 11” high overall. Most were issued as companion sculptures although each was sold separately. Only three were limited editions; the others were open (non-limited). Let’s [...]
‘Into the woods’ is probably not the most accurate title for a post describing the wide-ranging array of Cybis wildlife sculptures profiled below, but I think that with more than 50% of them qualifying as per habitat I can probably get away with it. Beginning with the smallest woodland denizen, Deer Mouse ‘In Clover’ is [...]
Watching the acrobatic antics of a pair of squirrels reminded me that Cybis created four of them in porcelain. The first and best known of them, Squirrel, ‘Mr. Fluffy Tail’ appeared in 1965 as an open edition and was produced until his retirement in 1971. He stands 7.5” high and has the typical squirrel attitude [...]
Here are five Cybis designs in honor of the holiday and moms everywhere. America's First Born (Virginia Dare) is 8" high overall. On August 18, 1587, Virginia Dare became the first baby born on American soil to British parents. She was born on Roanoke Island which was part of the Virginia Colony for which she [...]
In 1987 the Ryder Cup was held at the Muirfield Village course, owned by Jack Nicklaus, and in conjunction with that event Cybis produced a special limited edition porcelain commemorative. Approximately 20 of them were made: one for each Team USA player, plus additional sculptures for the PGA and World Golf Hall of Fame. It [...]
THE CYBIS ARCHIVE 