A number of original paintings have come to light after I wrote my Paintings, Part One post, so it makes sense to review these new finds here. All of them appeared as auction lot offerings at DESA Unicum, Warsaw, in 2020 and/or 2021; the photographs, titles and dimensions cited are from those listings. Some items [...]
Far fewer circa-1940s drawings by Boleslaw Cybis have been found, no doubt because he was busily engaged in settling into his new life in America. Only one item shown below is actually dated as that decade, although several have been attributed (by outside sources) to that timeframe. This pastel-on-paper drawing of a long-haired woman was [...]
Many of the drawings done by Boleslaw Cybis during the 1930s are noticeably different from those he produced in the previous decade. Most of them can be divided into three genres: portraits of Polish people in historical costumes, portraits of people in Libya, and landscapes done while in Italy. Historical Polish Costumes Some of these [...]
This is the first of a series of four Archive posts showing original drawings made by Boleslaw Cybis from the 1920s through the 1940s, sorted by decade. Additional examples will be added to these posts as they are discovered. Original paintings appear in their own posts: Paintings, Part One and Part Two. Cybis’ drawings of [...]
Among the unexpected odds and ends that appeared in the 2019 liquidation auctions of most of the backstock of the Cybis studio was a small piece that I’d not seen mentioned in any of their advertising: a representation of the tablet(s) said to have been brought by Moses from the mountaintop. They are variously referred [...]
Isn’t it odd how one mystery can lead to another, entirely different, one? Such was the case with a puzzling single piece of Cybis that surfaced some months ago. It was among a private collection being liquidated by the family of an enthusiastic collector who also knew the studio owners personally from the 1950s onward. [...]
If you have not been able to identify a Cybis human-figure sculpture because you do not know its name and thus cannot find it in the Name Index, this page may be able to help. IMPORTANT! BEFORE YOU EXAMINE THE VISUAL INDEX, PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING TO MAKE SURE THAT YOUR FIGURE IS NOT SHOWN [...]
One of the fascinating aspects of chronicling Cybis Porcelain sculptures is how often a piece that appears simple and straightforward can turn out to have a complicated ‘life story.’ Take, for example, the one known to most collectors as First Flight. There are four known versions of this design – if versions is indeed the [...]
The Cybis archive 