I recently discovered a circa-2005 documentary that was created for Polish television, presenting a fascinating look at the backstory behind the creation of the Polish Pavilion murals for the 1939 World's Fair. It's also an in-depth look at the creators, i.e., the Brotherhood of Saint Luke itself, with some archival photos and documents that I [...]
Category: Boleslaw Cybis Paintings & Drawings
Cybis/Zamoyski Military Frescoes in Poland
In 1935, Boleslaw Cybis and Jan Zamoyski were tasked with creating a fresco painting for the interior of the Military Institute of Geography in Warsaw. The Military Institute is an amalgam of different museums and study locations; for example, there is the Military Institute of Medicine, the Military Institute of Armament Technology, and so on. [...]
A Young Artist Alone: Boleslaw Cybis in Constantinople
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 [...]
The ‘Polish Sky’ Ceiling by Boleslaw Cybis et al. in Gdansk, 1938
Originally shown in 1930s Drawings, additional material has come to light that absolutely warrants giving this unusual work an Archive post of its own. This was one of the final two commissions that Boleslaw Cybis received and completed before leaving Poland for – of course, unknown to him at that time – his permanent residence [...]
Boleslaw Cybis Paintings from the 1930s
This second part of the chronological retrospective of Boleslaw Cybis’ art focuses on his paintings from the 1930s. I recently discovered that the timeline presented in the early-1970s Cybis in Retrospect exhibit catalog is at sometimes at odds with dates on the paintings themselves. For example, it claims that Cybis was in Italy during 1928 [...]
Boleslaw Cybis Paintings from the 1920s
Because so many original paintings have come to light via auctions during the past two years, I have decided to revamp my original two ‘Cybis paintings’ posts into three new retrospectives according to when they were created: 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Drawings and sketches by Boleslaw Cybis are already chronicled according to decade, and so [...]
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 [...]
Cybis at the 1930s International Fairs
After writing my previous post about Boleslaw Cybis and the Brotherhood of Saint Luke, I was inspired to look a bit further into the ‘world stage’ Exhibitions that he was involved in. There were three such Exhibitions of note. From left to right in these renderings of the Polish Pavilions within each, they were the [...]
Boleslaw Cybis and the Brotherhood of Saint Luke
Any biographical sketch of Boleslaw Cybis will mention his membership in the ‘Brotherhood of Saint Luke' – but what exactly was that? It was the name of a guild of artists and painters, formed in 1925 in Warsaw, Poland. The founder was Tadeusz Pruszkowski who was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in [...]
THE CYBIS ARCHIVE 