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George Edgar Ohr

Ana Cano.

1 de la escuela de cermica de la Moncloa

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

Ohr was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, the son of young German immigrants, Johanna Wiedman and George

Ohr. Both Alsatians, the Ohrs had moved to Biloxi after a brief stop in New Orleans, their port of entry in

l853. George Ohr Sr. established the first blacksmith shop in Biloxi and later opened the first grocery store

there. His son, George Edgar Ohr, would grow up to be a flamboyant, dedicated potter and a memorable

figure in his hometown. Young George had a restless adolescence in the confusion of the post-Civil War

years. After learning the blacksmith trade from his father, George Ohr at fourteen left for New Orleans,

where he tried nineteen different jobs. When he was twenty-two, a boyhood friend from Biloxi, JosephFortun Meyer, offered Ohr a job as an apprentice potter in New Orleans. It set the course of George Ohrs

life. Ohr later wrote, When I found the potter's wheel I felt it all over like a wild duck in water.

The potter begins

After he had learned his craft, he left New Orleans for a two-year, sixteen-state tour of potteries in the

United States to learn all he could about the profession. He returned to Biloxi and built his pottery shop

himself. He fabricated all of the ironwork, made the potter's wheel, the kiln, rafted lumber down river,

sawed it into boards, and constructed his shop. Joseph Meyer had taught him how to use the natural

resources around Biloxi, how to locate and dig clay from the banks of the nearby Tchoutacabouffa River.

Ohr rowed his skiff up the river, dug the clay, and floated his load back down the Tchoutacabouffa.

When his kiln and supplies were ready, he worked hard at the potters 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.

Mad potter of Biloxi

One good outcome of the Worlds Fair was his courtship and marriage to a young German womanwhom he

had met in New Orleans, Josephine Gehring. Soon afterwards, Meyer again invited Ohr to work with him atthe 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.

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Creating exotic forms

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, Ohrs 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 arts sake, Gods 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.

Cited as a genius

The 1904 Louisiana Purchase International Exposition was both a triumph and a disaster for Ohr. He won a

Silver Medal for the most original art pottery. He displayed several hundred of his finest pieces and sold

nothing. No one would pay the prices he demanded. Nonetheless his virtuosity in throwing pots and his

glazes were admired by ceramic critics and potters. He was called one of the most interesting potters in the

United States in the April 1899 edition of the journalChina, Glass, and Pottery Review. In lectures at

Alfred University in New York, the famous ceramics teacher Charles Binns cited Ohr as a genius. Still, Ohrs

refusal to sell his fine pieces at attractive prices prohibited him from the recognition and success for which

he longed.

Ohr gave up his profession as potter in l909. The famous ceramic shop landmark became Biloxi's first autorepair shop, run by his sons. Urged to sell his pots by his family, Ohr instead packed up the several

thousand pots that he could not or would not sell and stored them away. He was confident that the world

would someday recognize him as the greatest art potter on earth. He died of cancer in Biloxi in l918.

Acclaim, at last

The artistic acclaim that he had envisioned came fifty years after his death. In l968, James W. Carpenter, an

antiques dealer from New Jersey looking for old cars, happened upon the crates of pots stored in the Ohr

Boys' Auto Repair Shop. He subsequently bought the entire cache of 6,000 pieces for $50,000. As the pots

began to come on the market, art pottery collectors were intrigued, art historians began to re-evaluate his

importance, and his pots began to sell for thousands of dollars.Today Ohr is a cult figure in the art world. One contemporary critic has described his work as boldly fixed

at the extreme of chance, spontaneity, natural asymmetry, calculated imperfection, rustic vigor, wit, and

mischief.

His hometown of Biloxi, once indifferent to his art, established the George E. Ohr Arts and Cultural

Center in 1994. A new museum, The Ohr-OKeefe Museum of Art designed by architect Frank Gehry,

opened in 2003.

Patti Carr Black is the author ofArt in Mississippi (1720-1980) from which this article is adapted.Art in

Mississippi, copublished by the Mississippi Historical Society, the Mississippi Department of Archives andHistory, and the University Press of Mississippi, is the first book in the Societys Heritage of Mississippi

Series. Black is the former director of the Old Capitol Museum, Mississippi Department of Archives and

History.

http://www.georgeohr.org/http://www.georgeohr.org/http://www.georgeohr.org/http://www.georgeohr.org/

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Su afn de llamar la atencin, sus esfuerzos para intentar pasmar al pblico eran notables.Y el histrionismo que obscenamente mostraba, deja pequeo al de otro gran vanidoso: Salvador Dal-en su misma cuerda-.Y al igual que ese ltimo, estaba bien dotado... para la auto propaganda.Se promocionaba como un trabajo; sin igual, indiscutible, sin rival".

La prctica comercial de George Edgar Ohr ha sido comparada con la de Phineas Taylor Barnum,

todo un showman y pcaro de su poca del cual, seguramente, tomara nota. Hay que tener en

cuenta que, son los estados unidos en plena expansin donde el empuje de las individualidades, (el

individualismo -a lo Ayn Rand- ) atropella en todos los sectores, desde la industria pesada al

espectculo, pasando por el arte o la artesana.

La aparatosa obra de Ohr responde tanto a este tipo de ambiente como a su personalidad narcisistay eglatra, -cuando no hay mucho que decir se toma al yo -o sus imgenes reflejadas- comocentro de todo el universo.

Prolfico, produjo ms de 10.000 piezas todas diferentes.Con caractersticas comunes: la exageracin, el abigarramiento y el exceso que rayan,

frecuentemente, en el mal gusto.Es ms una obra decadente, donde se pueden encontrarreinterpretacines de formas y modelos ofrecidos por los estilos precedentes, los objetos de Ohrson propios de un tiempo que en lo esttico est acabando.

ALGUNOS DATOS BIOGRAFICOS

Ohr nace en Biloxi, Mississippi, Estados Unidos el 12 de julio de 1857. Su familia viene de la Alsacia-Lorena, regin entre Francia y Alemania. El abuelo John George Ohr, en 1850 migra con su familiadesde Alemania a New Orleans, estableciendose en esta ciudad. Su padre, establece una herrera enBiloxi el mismo ao del nacimiento de George Ohr y su madre regenta una popular Drugstore, tiendacon todo tipo de artculos, los "super" de esos tiempos.

Siendo nio curiosea en la alfarera de la familia Meyer de New Orleans. Y en 1870, cuando GeorgeOhr tiene 13 aos, Joseph Fortune Meyer, lo contrata como aprendiz en taller.

Con 24 y 25 aos George Ohr viaja por 16 estados, visitando y conociendo alfares y alfareros.

Regresa a Nueva New Orleans en 1882 donde se coloca en la alfareria de William Virgin. Finalmenteen 1983 regresa a Biloxi , donde instala un taller y desarrollar su personal obra.

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ALGUNOS TEXTOS SOBRE George OhrY SU OBRAGeorge Ohr, Art Potter

por Ellison, Robert A.

Editorial: Antique Collectors Club Ltd - Estados Unidos

The Mad Potter Of Biloxi

por Clark, Garth; Ellison, Robert A y Heicht, Eugene

Editorial: Perseus Distribution Services - Estados Unidos

GEORGE OHR and His Biloxi Art Pottery"

De Robert W. Blasberg, publicado por J.W. Carpenter,