Cybis pieces produced during the 1950s are noticeably different from the post-1960 sculptures in several ways. One is that almost all of them were cast from commercially available molds, a topic more fully explored in When Is a Cybis Not a Cybis. Another is that a fair percentage of 1950s items were fully glazed, rather [...]
Despite the pieces having been produced in the same studio, it’s usually easy to distinguish Cordey and Cybis from each other by sight; their styles were very different. Most Cordey items were Old World/European/Dresden in flavor, while the first-decade Cybis retail pieces were either religious (most) or animals and birds (some.) They were also marked [...]
By far the most elusive items for this Cybis researcher were not made of porcelain, papka, or paint-and-canvas, but rather of celluloid: Three short 16mm films that were created during the 1970s and early 1980s. This is the story of the films and of my search for them. Of Queens and Kings and Other Things [...]
Unlike other porcelain studios such as Boehm, Royal Worcester and Connoisseur, Cybis did not indicate the issue (retail introduction) year on their sculptures; when a date appears on a Cybis piece it refers to the copyright registration year. Cybis and Cordey items produced during the 1940s were not formally copyrighted, and all of the 1950s [...]
Before the internet era, the print medium was the only way for art porcelain studios to 'get the word out' to collectors and potential buyers. In addition to newspaper advertising placed by their network of retail galleries, Cybis maintained a steady stream of publications from the early 1960s to the mid 1980s. The Boleslaw Cybis [...]
As related in the first Cybis Locations post, the retail success of the studio during the 1960s made it imperative to find a facility with sufficient working space; this was one of the biggest challenges facing its new owner/director Marylin Chorlton. It must of course remain in Trenton, but a turnkey ideal location proved difficult [...]
Often some of the most charming snippets of a 'famous' person's life are the little things that never get put into the official record; here are two accidentally-unearthed bits about Boleslaw Cybis. The Bookplate Sometimes it's easy to assume that an artist would always design things for their own use, and often that's true…but not [...]
Although the Cybis porcelain studio has spent most of its 'life' in New Jersey, its present location is actually the fourth in its history. Three of those four studio locations still physically exist today, decades after some of the finest American art porcelain was first produced within them. The Steinway Mansion in Astoria, NY: 1940-1942 [...]
As shown in this Archive post, occasionally items from the 1940s are found with either a dual signature (Cordey plus Cybis) on the piece; or, in a very few instances and as shown in this post, a standard Cordey item has been found bearing the M.B. Cybis signature instead. There aren't many of either, but [...]
The final week of October seems an appropriately spooky time for a discussion of the 'body snatching' that occasionally occurred within the design process of Cybis porcelains. Despite my fanciful terminology, it wasn't always an entire sculpture body that was appropriated for use in another; sometimes it was only certain parts. Because most porcelain sculptures [...]
THE CYBIS ARCHIVE 