Fairytales proved a fertile field for the imaginations of the artists of Cybis for the first two decades of the modern studio’s existence, with many of the best loved tales by Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm being represented by them in porcelain. They were a mixture of limited and non-limited editions; the non-limited [...]
Cats and dogs were both represented in porcelain by Cybis, although less than a dozen designs were created in either category. The majority of those sculptures were produced by the modern (post-1960) studio although there are earlier examples. In fact, there are two feline designs dating from the Cordey era (1940s-early 1950s). Dual-marked Cordey/Cybis Cats [...]
It seems a bit odd that during its entire history the Cybis studio produced so few flower basket designs. Four of the retail-production baskets were open editions and one was a limited edition. The sole limited edition basket is the Colonial Basket which represents the official flowers of the original 13 colonies. The flowers included [...]
‘Portraits in Porcelain’ was the category name given by Cybis to their limited edition full-figure studies of characters from history, literature and the performing arts. These covered a wide range of subjects and sometimes more than a bit of artistic license was used in the portrayals, but a number of the Portraits can be counted [...]
Turning now from the mythological and Shakespearean genres to a more wide-ranging overview of the literary characters as portrayed by Cybis, we find that quite a few of them are from the medieval era. The bust of Beatrice, from The Inferno, is 12” high overall and a limited edition of 700. Designed by Laszlo Ispanky, [...]
Continuing the review of Cybis’ literature-based portraits naturally leads to their interpretations of characters and creatures from Greek, Roman and Asian mythology. The actual appearance of the first two mythological studies is unknown. One, titled Greek Head, is known only from a single text list of names in the 1974 catalog; I am going to [...]
What better way to start a four-part review of the Cybis ‘literature-based’ studies than with their interpretations of Shakespeare’s immortal characters? I shall leave it to my readers to judge whether or not they think that The Bard would be pleased! But first a quick word about the "Portraits in Porcelain" as Cybis categorized them. [...]
The circus theme was a popular one for Cybis porcelain; it was represented continuously in both human and animal studies ever since the first two in that genre were introduced in 1975. Only four of the circus sculptures were declared to be limited editions. Barnaby, an open edition introduced in 1975, was originally named ‘Barnaby’ [...]
Although Cybis never created any sort of 'maritime collection', a selection of their sculptures do fit into a seagoing theme – so, why not? The very first sea-based Cybis is also the only piece they ever made that specifically depicts a fish, although two other much-later pieces do include a fish as a decorative element. [...]
The horse was featured throughout the Cybis studio’s history; a few equines even appear as early Papka pieces created in the 1940s. This post will focus only on the ‘real’ horse studies; the mythological equines are shown in Unicorns and Pegasi, and the Carousel Horses are profiled separately as well. I have sorted these Cybis [...]
THE CYBIS ARCHIVE 