The word ‘variation’, as it applied to Cybis porcelains, could have any of several meanings. It could refer to a single sculpture that was subsequently released, with additional decorative elements, as a new piece with a different name; the ‘warren’ of bunnies is a great example of that. The 1981 bunny Bon-Bon was especially prolific [...]
Category: Birds
‘The Phoenix’ – An Unusual Cybis Bird Head
Every now and then something utterly unexpected from the Cybis studio comes to light, such as the discovery of a very unusual limited edition that was available for a relatively short time. (Some of this content originally appeared as a previous Archive post that described this sculpture as a gallery-exclusive special-event piece. However, official Cybis [...]
Quacking Up Over Cybis Ducks
It was rather a surprise when I recently realized that between the Cybis and Cordey studio operations, they produced 15 ducks in various designs and iterations from the early 1950s until the end of the 1980s. I honestly hadn’t thought that ducks were that big of a deal at Cybis, but they actually outnumber the [...]
A Monumental Pair of Cybis Papka Bird and Flower Pieces
Rather than simply add these to the 1940s Papka post, I felt this find was big enough (dimensionally speaking) to deserve its own page. It's also very difficult to find any color photographs of Boleslaw Cybis' papka pieces because the only publication in which some do appear (the 1971 exhibit catalog Cybis in Retrospect) was [...]
1940s Cybis Porcelain, Part 1: Papka and Early Porcelain Designs
The Cybis porcelain studio produced five remarkably different style-genres during the first 30 years of its existence. Three of them belonged to the same decade (1940s) which was also the studio's first. These genres can be loosely grouped as follows: Papka and early porcelain; 1940s retailer items; spatterware reproductions; atypical early 1960s retail; and all [...]
Cybis Bird Sculptures after 1960
Almost none of the Cybis birds produced after 1960 resemble the early birds of the 1950s in style, and all of them were created in bisque (matte) porcelain. The sculptures below are sorted by decade according to their introduction year. The Cybis Owls shows those birds in more detail than is mentioned here, and the [...]
Cybis Early Birds (1940s through 1960)
The Cybis studio has a long history of bird studies, with a few dating as far back as the 1940s; those are recognizably different from those produced during the 1950s and beyond. The Cybis birds produced during the 1950s show a gradually evolving style mix which coalesced into a permanent and definitive look beginning in [...]
The Cybis Owls
Honestly, who doesn’t like owls? (well…probably rodents) Owls have been a hugely popular collecting genre for ages, and Cybis depicted them several times in porcelain. The Cybis owl that shows up in countless collections and online sales is their iconic Baby Owl which was introduced in 1957. This adorable owlet is the longest-running sculpture that [...]
THE CYBIS ARCHIVE 