The early 1960s saw the birth of what is recognized today as the Cybis Porcelain studio. After the deaths of Boleslaw and Marja Cybis in 1957 and 1958, the Cordey influence (as seen in the M.B. Cybis items) disappeared and the instances of Holland-Mold-based items waned. Original designs became the new focus. How did the [...]
This post will take us back a half century, to attend a state dinner at the White House in April 1975. The Cybis North American Indians sculptures served as the table centerpieces for this event. So, step into your friendly neighborhood time machine and let's go... Back to the 1970s A recent mail delivery contained [...]
Although Tony Trezza was not a ‘Cybis artist’ in the sense of having created porcelain sculptures for the studio, he was definitely an artist in his own right and contributed in large part to the studio’s success. He also created a work of art that every employee of, and visitor to, the studio saw until [...]
During the early 1920s, Boleslaw Cybis had to flee his homeland and take refuge in Turkey. This period of time is very briefly mentioned in Cybis in Retrospect, but was a significant influence on his personal style. I recently translated some letters that the young artist of 25 wrote to his mother not long after [...]
eBay is by far the largest selling venue for Cybis porcelains, with more than 1000 listings active on any given day, but the range of approaches taken by sellers is as wide as the Grand Canyon. An epically-awkward listing recently appeared and prompted me to create this post as a small tutorial showing the Good, [...]
In honor of Women’s History Month, the Museum of American Porcelain Art (MAPA) has mounted an exhibit recognizing seven women who made major contributions to the history of art porcelain. Five of them represent the Cybis studio; each has an Artist Profile on this site (bolded links). Museum Curator Carey Barone designed the lovely wall-spanning [...]
The existence of some circa-1940s pieces that are dual-marked M.B. Cybis and also have the vertical monogram MC strongly suggests that the MC actually meant “Marja Cybis herself made this item.” This post collects all of the MC-marked pieces so far discovered; they are typically a sub-set of those that are marked M.B. Cybis, which [...]
I recently discovered, via a Polish tourism site, an article from 10 years ago about a circa-1940s ‘lady head bust’ made at the early Cybis studio. It was in a small museum in the village of Kazimierz – a town familiar to anyone who has read the 1920s Paintings or the Timeline posts. Boleslaw Cybis [...]
The 1980s limited edition Sleeping Beauty is one of the most difficult pieces to find in a truly mint (un-damaged) condition today. There is an area of porcelain lace that seems to attract breakage like a rare-earth magnet. Unfortunately, most online sellers either don’t know or don’t disclose the extent of the damage and so [...]
Just a quick heads-up that the ‘look-back period’ for the Recent Sales page has changed a bit, at least for most entries. Until today, the earliest sales on that page have been from 2018. (All of the pre-2022 sales are gleaned from auction house results, not from eBay.) However, the page is starting to become [...]
THE CYBIS ARCHIVE 