For the past several months I've been 'digging' into an unusual story, trying to separate fact from fiction. This particular investigative endeavor involves a set of Cybis' North American Indians sculptures. The story begins in the early 1970s, most likely 1972 or 1973. Several newspaper articles about the Cybis studio mentioned that a set of [...]
Category: People (figures & busts)
An Unusual (Sort Of) Cybis Bearded Man Bust circa 1940s
The coexistence of the Cordey and Cybis studio lines during the 1940s occasionally resulted in some interesting 'crossover' pieces. One such piece is a bust of a bearded elderly man, perhaps a sage, signed MC indicating it was by Marja (a/k/a Maria) Cybis, wife of Boleslaw. This piece sold online in 2011 and these four [...]
1940s Cybis Porcelain, Part 2: Retail Items
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 [...]
Unusual 1960s Cybis Porcelain Designs by Ispanky
There is a small group of Cybis pieces that depart noticeably from the 'recognizably Cybis' retail design aesthetic. All of them were created during the first half of the 1960s and designed by Laszlo Ispanky. Flight Into Egypt is 13" high and was offered in 1960 in white bisque only. It is attached to a [...]
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 [...]
Sports Studies by Cybis
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 [...]
Lady Elizabeth, a Cybis Gal on Her Own
The Cybis studio occasionally took an individual element from a 'group' sculpture and offered it as a separate retail edition under a different name. They were almost always animal studies; for example, the buck in the White Tailed Deer trio was offered as the single Deer in Motion, and one of the Charging Buffaloes was [...]
Fleurette by Cybis: A Tale of Two Stories
It's usually easy to identify the story behind each of the Cybis porcelain 'character' studies, but there's one in particular that threw me for a loop at first ….as well as having an unfinished tale of her own. Fleurette was introduced in 1981 as a limited edition of 1000 at a price of $725; by [...]
Of Princes and Paupers by Cybis
One of many literary works that inspired Cybis porcelain designs was Mark Twain's tale of The Prince and the Pauper. In fact, there ended up being more than one version of those two lads, spanning a full decade. Each sculpture was sold separately. Both were designed by Lynn Klockner Brown. The Prince The first (standard) [...]
The Cybis Porcelain Chess Set
One of the most ambitious porcelain works by the post-1950s Cybis studio was also perhaps their most unusual. This is the elaborate chess set that was first created during the 1970s, although there were actually three versions produced over the course of the next two decades. The story of the Cybis Chess Set began in [...]
THE CYBIS ARCHIVE 