Sibyl Barsky
The Jewish Encyclopedia
of Western Pennsylvania
A project of the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center
Sibyl Barsky (1905-2007) immigrated to Western Pennsylvania from Russia with her family as a small child. After briefly studying painting at Carnegie Institute of Technology, she pursued a career in the early 1930s as a self-taught sculptor. She initially used household objects until she could afford professional sculpting tools.
Barsky joined the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Society of Sculptors and exhibited regularly in Pittsburgh throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In addition to impressionist sculptures depicting social realities, she made busts of notable people, including businessman Morris Rom, metalworker Hyman Blum, artist Samuel Baer Filner, prothonotary Dave Roberts, and author Fred Lewis Pattee. In the late 1930s, Barsky was one of six artists hired for the Pittsburgh group of the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration.
Barsky married the poet Joseph Grucci in 1940. They relocated to Penn State University in 1950. She purchased the Boogersburg School in 1953 and maintained it as her art studio until 2001. The building became home of the Centre County Historical Society.
