If you perused the photos in my ‘life at the Cybis studio’ post, you might perhaps have noticed what the various artists and artisans were wearing – at least, in the photos taken at the Norman Avenue studio. They are dressed in normal, everyday street clothes (shirts, blouses, sweaters, even a jacket or two) which [...]
Author: The Cybis Archive
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Putting it All Together: Assembling a Cybis Porcelain Sculpture
In my December 2023 post, The Art of Making Art Porcelain, I described the ‘finishing and mounting’ process as Step #7. Depending on how many individual molds made up each component of a particular design, this could be quite a complicated process. Not only did each element need to be assembled (‘mounted’) but then that [...]
Cybis Bling: Gold Decoration on Cybis Porcelains
Karat-gold paint has long been a traditional way to add ‘bling’ to porcelain figurines, although the extent to which different studios utilized it varied widely. For example, it is almost never found on Royal Worcester, Albany, or Connoisseur of Malvern pieces. On this side of the Atlantic, I’ve never seen a Burgues or Kazmar item [...]
The 1939 World’s Fair Polish Murals
Although the 1939 Polish Pavilion murals have been referenced in numerous bio-snippets about Boleslaw Cybis, I was unable to locate good photographs of them until very recently. There were nine murals, based on three very different themes. The Seven ‘History of Poland’ Murals These were commissioned in early 1938 by a committee that was directed [...]
Carpets and Tapestries by Boleslaw and Marja Cybis
Although textiles are far from the first medium that comes to mind when considering the works of Boleslaw and Marja Cybis, they would form a surprisingly notable part of a catalogue raisonné. Boleslaw and Marja were definitely creating textile art in Poland during the 1930s. What did these items look like? In her article Polish Textiles [...]
Market Value of Cybis Porcelains Marked ‘A.P.’
This is an expansion of/addendum to my July 2021 post explaining the nine different reasons that a piece of Cybis porcelain might have been marked AP (which most people would assume means ‘artist proof’ but – as that Archive post explains – on Cybis pieces it probably does not actually mean that.) I am often [...]
Decals Used on Cybis Porcelain Items
Although the vast majority of Cybis porcelain pieces were completely hand-painted, there were some exceptions to that ‘rule’ at various times during the studio’s existence. Interestingly, the exceptions are remarkably consistent in terms of genre. But first, an explanation of the processes by which a decal is used to decorate china or porcelain. All decals [...]
Cybis Artist Profile: George Ivers, Part Three
This final part of my profile of George Ivers looks at some of his non-Cybis paintings on porcelain as well as his oil and watercolor paintings, dimensional sculptures, limited-edition prints, and greeting cards. Paintings on Porcelain These are very similar to (and in one case, extremely so!) the Limnettes that he created for Cybis during [...]
Cybis Artist Profile: George Ivers, Part Two
This second part of my profile of George Ivers focuses on the art that he produced either when he was a prisoner of war or afterward, and also his published memoir which goes into great detail about his wartime experiences. CONTENT ADVISORY: This post contains images and/or descriptions that may be distressing to some readers, [...]
Cybis Artist Profile: George Ivers, Part One
As the Art Director of the Cybis porcelain studio for more than a dozen years, George Ivers had almost as much influence over its artistic history as did Marylin Chorlton and Laszlo Ispanky. However, the scope of his work was far wider than many suppose, and spanned an active career of more than six decades. [...]
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