If Charles Darwin had regarded the Galapagos tortoises from a commercial, rather than environmental, evolutionary standpoint, one wonders whether his theories would have ended up reaching quite the same conclusions as they did! All kidding aside, I recently discovered a fascinating ‘evolution’ of a turtle mold within the confines of the Cybis studio. This particular [...]
One of my research forays earlier this year made me aware of an article published by a Florida newspaper regarding a circa-1960s Cybis sculpture: their Bull ‘God of the Thunderbolt.’ On close examination, however, the content turns out to be what used to be called a 'fish story' – or, in today’s parlance, “fake news.” The [...]
The items that were offered as 1940s retail pieces by Boleslaw Cybis' studio were almost all done in conventional porcelain rather than the clay/plaster 'papka' material seen in 1940s Part One. The retail designs were in many cases a mixture of traditional Old World European and artistic interpretation (albeit not as 'unusual' as much of [...]
A sports theme probably isn't the first that comes to mind when thinking about Cybis porcelains but in fact they did produce more than a dozen pieces in that genre. Two of them were special commissions but the others were available at retail. Some were human figures and others were animals; however, only one of [...]
After sorting through all of the various Cybis porcelain animals by genre (cats, dogs, bulls and bears, horses, woodlanders, denizens of the deep, carousel creatures, et al.) there were still a few that refused to fit into a category….and so here they are. One of the most impressive Cybis sculptures was the Dall Sheep. A [...]
As a gardener you’d think I’d loathe snails and as a person violently allergic to garlic you’d assume I also avoid them like the plague, gastronomically speaking – both are true, but with one notable exception: I once spent four years actively trying to acquire a specific snail (no, I’m not a malacologist either). It [...]
Euterpe, the Greek muse of song and music, certainly inspired the artists of Cybis at various times during the past decades (her compatriot Terpsichore is reflected in their ballet sculptures.) Their first two such studies both appeared in 1967 but reflect very different musical genres. This evocative study of Arturo Toscanini’s hands was originally titled [...]
Although the proper term for a large group of rabbits is a colony or a fluffle, it does seem as if it should instead be “a reproduction of rabbits” or “a bonanza of bunnies”! Either of these would apply to the largesse of lagomorphs created in porcelain by Cybis. Indeed, they were such a mainstay [...]
The Cybis archive 