George E. Ohr

George E. Ohr (1857-1918) has been called the first art potter in the United States, and some say the finest.

Ohr was born in Biloxi, Mississippi. He established the first blacksmith shop in Biloxi and later opened the first grocery store there when he was 14 years of age.

A notable feature of Ohr's pottery is that many items have very thin walls (< 5mm thickness), metallic glazes, and twisted, pinched shapes. Ohr's works also include photography, often whimsical self portraits (Ohr images). Ohr came back to Biloxi and opened his own shop which he intended to dig his own clay along the banks of the tchoutacabouffa river. When his kiln and supplies were ready, he worked hard at the potter’s wheel producing practical items like jugs, mugs, planters, flowerpots, and water bottles. He found time to produce finer work, as well. Ohr startled the art world at the 1885 World's Fair in New Orleans with his extraordinary pots. He exhibited some six hundred pieces, which were stolen before he could get them back to Biloxi.One good outcome of the World’s Fair was his courtship and marriage to a young German woman whom he had met in New Orleans, Josephine Gehring. Soon afterwards, Meyer again invited Ohr to work with him at the newly created New Orleans Art Pottery. For two years, 1888 to 1890, Ohr worked in New Orleans throwing huge garden pots. His work was competently done but with no hint of his later virtuosity in creating delicate, imaginative pots.

After the New Orleans Art Pottery went out of business, Ohr returned to Biloxi and again went into serious production for himself. Biloxi Art and Novelty Pottery, as he called his pink shop, in no time was crammed with vessels of all shapes, sizes, and decorations, “rustic, ornamental, new and ancient shaped vases, etc.” As he created his pots, he also created himself. Ohr presented himself as a wildly eccentric person — brash, mischievous, wearing flowing beard and hair, and hooking his moustache over his ears. He gave his business a carnival atmosphere.

His shop became an established tourist attraction on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. At his shop, fascinated visitors could watch an entertaining performance by the “Mad Potter of Biloxi” and buy mementos of their trip.

Tragedy struck in the fall of l894 when a fire wiped out the pottery along with twenty other business establishments in Biloxi. Ohr rescued some of his charred “clay babies,” as he called his pots, and began anew. Soon Ohr had rebuilt a grand new pottery with a five-story tower shaped like a pagoda. He called it Biloxi Art Pottery Unlimited and the tourists returned in great numbers.

In the meantime, Meyer had become potter at Sophie Newcomb College (now a part of Tulane University) and again asked Ohr to work with him in New Orleans. From l897 to 1899 Ohr divided his time between Biloxi and New Orleans, working constantly to supplement his income for his growing family. He and Josephine had a total of ten children, but only five survived to adulthood. His cups and saucers, plaques of local sites, Mississippi mule ink wells, tiny artist pallets, puzzle mugs, and molded souvenirs of all kinds, were popular with tourists and local residents. But his extraordinary skill at the potter's wheel making his artware brought him to the attention of the ceramic art world. Ohr threw extremely delicate, thin-walled pots which he manipulated into exotic forms by twisting, denting, ruffling, and folding the clay into vases, “no two alike.” He said in an interview, “I brood over [each pot] with the same tenderness a mortal child awakens in its parent.”

Ohr's serious creations did not find popularity with the public. And because the Victorian art pottery of the day was carefully controlled and decorated, Ohr’s energetic and expressionistic treatment of clay was too wild even for refined tastes. Ohr was passionate about his work and supremely confident in his talent. He wrote to an art critic, “I am making pottery for art’s sake, God’s sake, the future generation, and — by present indications — for my own satisfaction, but when I'm gone my work ... will be prized, honored and cherished.” In l899 he packed up eight pieces and sent them to the Smithsonian Institution. One of the pots was inscribed, “I am the Potter Who Was.” When George Ohr, Sr., gave up on pottery, he left nearly 7,000 of his pieces in the garage of his son, George Ohr Jr., saying that sooner or later people would come to admire his work. Years after George Ohr Sr.'s death, an antiques dealer wanted to purchase a newly-refurbished vintage car from George Ohr Jr. Inside the garage, he noticed the pottery and bought it all, displaying the items in galleries across the country.

The Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art has a permanent collection of Ohr's work. A new museum designed by Frank Gehry is scheduled to open on July 12, 2006.

External links

George E. Ohr America’s First Art Potter