Boleslaw Cybis (pronounced SEE–bis) was born in Lithuania in 1895. During the 1920s and 1930s the quality of his work was recognized throughout Europe and culminated in the opportunity to collaborate on a series of murals for the Hall of Honor in the Polish Pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. Returning to the United States after the Germans invaded Poland later that year, he and his wife Marja established a studio in the NY City suburb of Astoria, eventually focusing on ceramic sculptures in the tradition of the artisans of Eastern Europe. In 1942 they decided to relocate to Trenton, New Jersey.
The sculptures produced during the early 1940s are best described as ‘artsy’ and bear little resemblance to the studio’s subsequent output. The overall genre is that of Neo-Meissen rococo and papka, with applied decorations being overwhelmingly in evidence.
Boleslaw Cybis died in 1957, and his wife Marja in 1958; his protege Marylin Kozuch took over the ownership of the studio as per the terms of Cybis’ wish that the artistic integrity of its work be maintained in perpetuity. Among the talented porcelain artists who were drawn to the increasingly-respected Cybis studio was a young Hungarian immigrant named Laszlo Ispanky who joined the studio in 1960 and quickly rose to the position of Master Sculptor. His influence is seen in all of the portrait sculptures from that era.
Because Cybis sculptures were created in an artisan environment and never mass-produced, the level of detail work was high. The initial creation of a sculpture was only the beginning of the process. There would then be experiments in colors and decorations via sample sculptures from which the finalized version would develop. The small size and intimate surroundings of the studio, as well as its philosophy, meant that the actual production output was relatively limited compared to the typical mass-market items and imports.