George Edgar Ohr

Ana Cano. 1 de la escuela de cermica de la Moncloa

George Edgar Ohr (July 12, 1857 April 7, 1918) was an American ceramic artist and the self-proclaimed "Mad Potter of Biloxi." In recognition of his innovative experimentation with modern clay forms from 18801910, some consider him the father of the American Abstract-Expressionism movement.

Personal life
George Ohr was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, on July 12, 1857. He was the son of German immigrants who arrived in New Orleans c. 1850 and subsequently married and moved to Biloxi. George Ohr tried his hand a various trades before he became interested in ceramics in 1879, while an apprentice of Joseph Fortune Meyer. Ohr married Josephine Gehring of New Orleans on September 15, 1886. Ten children were born to the Ohrs, but unfortunately only five survived to adulthood. George Ohr died of throat cancer on April 7, 1918. Ohr studied the potter's trade with Joseph Meyer in New Orleans, a potter whose family hailed from Alsace-Lorraine, as did Ohr's. Ohr's father had established the first blacksmith shop in Biloxi and his mother ran an early, popular grocery store there. In his lifetime, Ohr created well over 10,000 known pots. He was a showman of the style of P.T. Barnum, a contemporary. Ohr was an American figure at the turn of the 20th century. He called his work "unequaled, undisputed, unrivaled." In 1884, Ohr exhibited and sold his pottery at the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition in New Orleans. Of the hundreds of pieces he showed, Ohr boasted "no two alike." The 1894 fire that burned most of Biloxi also destroyed Ohr's workshop, and it has been noted that Ohr's post-fire works show tremendous "energy" and "fluidity."

Professional life
While Ohr had a healthy self-image, during his lifetime, many others in the art world did not accept him or his pots, and considered him a boasting eccentric. In the early 1900s, the Arts and Crafts Movement and its leaders (such as William Morris) advocated that an artist should display control and perfection in all art forms. Ohr displayed little obvious perfectionism in his art or control in his person, antagonizing art leaders nationally and political leaders at home. Ohr's work is now seen as ground-breaking and a harbinger of the abstract sculpture and pottery that developed in the mid-20th century. Ohr's pieces are now relatively rare and highly coveted. A notable feature of Ohr's pottery is their thin walls, metallic glazes, and twisted, pinched shapes. To this day, potters marvel at Ohr's porcelain-thin walls and unusual glazes. Few have been able to replicate them using a pottery wheel, which is how Ohr made his works. Ohr dug much of his clay locally in southern Mississippi from the Tchoutacabouffa River. Tchoutacabouffa is the Biloxi tribe's word for "broken pot."

The Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art

The Ohr-O'Keefe Museum Of Art in Biloxi has a large permanent collection of Ohr's work. Three buildings of the new campus designed by Frank Gehry opened to the public on November 8, 2010, with several exciting exhibitions, including a large selection of work by George Ohr. In addition to the Gehry-designed buildings, the Pleasant Reed Interpretive Center is also open to the public. The museum campus was partially destroyed during Hurricane Katrina when a casino barge was washed onto the semi-constructed facility. As art lovers visit the eastern portion of the campus, they can view the construction that is planned to continue on the western part of the campus, beginning with the Center for Ceramics building, followed by the George E. Ohr "Pods," scheduled to be completed in 2012. From 2007 - 2010 Ohr Rising: The Emergence of an American Master, a major national exhibition of Ohr pottery, traveled to Pomona, California; San Angelo, Texas; Alfred, New York; Toronto, Canada; and the Louisiana State University Museum of Art in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Many of those pieces, as well as several that have never been displayed, can now be seen at the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art. Two new Frank-Gehry designed buildings are scheduled to open in 2012. The City of Biloxi Center for Ceramics will open in late spring/early summer 2012 and will be used for classes in ceramics and other art. The Center for Ceramics will also contain community meeting areas.

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, Joseph Fortun 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 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.

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 journal China, 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 auto repair 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 of Art in Mississippi (1720-1980) from which this article is adapted.Art in Mississippi, copublished by the Mississippi Historical Society, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 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.

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 narcisista y eglatra, -cuando no hay mucho que decir se toma al yo -o sus imgenes reflejadas- como centro 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 encontrar reinterpretacines de formas y modelos ofrecidos por los estilos precedentes, los objetos de Ohr son 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 AlsaciaLorena, regin entre Francia y Alemania. El abuelo John George Ohr, en 1850 migra con su familia desde Alemania a New Orleans, estableciendose en esta ciudad. Su padre, establece una herrera en Biloxi el mismo ao del nacimiento de George Ohr y su madre regenta una popular Drugstore, tienda con 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 George Ohr 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. Finalmente en 1983 regresa a Biloxi , donde instala un taller y desarrollar su personal obra.

En Septiembre de 1886, George Ohr se casa con Josephine Gehring, moza de origen aleman, con la cual tendr una numerosa prole, algo comn en esos tiempos. Su obra se expone como novedosa y experimental ceramica, en diferentes eventos: 1893: The Worlds Columbian Exposition ,Chicago.

1895: The Cotton States and International Exposition, Atlanta, Georgia. 1900: Paris Exposition Universalle. Con la Torre Eiffel de icono. 1901: Arts and Crafts Exhibition of the Providence Art Club de Rhode Island, New York

En diciembre de1917, a George Ohr, le diagnostican un cancer, que el 7 de abril de1918 ser el motivo de su fallecimiento. CARACTERISTICAS DE SU CERAMICA Ohr trabaja bsicamente en el torno de alfarero. Sus piezas son mayoritariamente decorativas, abundan los jarrones de todos los tipos y tamaos. Con pocas piezas para el uso de mesa. Asas inverosmiles, formas muy recargadas, decoraciones originadas por aplastamiento, con paredes deformadas, pellizcadas o combina incisiones y deformaciones. Recursos, todos ellos muy efectistas, son los que conforman el repertorio de este autor. En los esmaltes proliferan las metalizaciones, asi como la acumulacin de colores diversos, o la sobre posicin de diferentes tipos de vidriados, dando lugar a cubiertas abigarradas, pesadas. Un dato de inters es que, Ohr producia sus pastas cermicas a partir de las arcillas que extraa de un ro cercano, el Tchouttacabouffa River que viene a significar algo as como: jarrn quebrado-.

Una buena coleccin del trabajo de Ohr est permanentemente expuesta en el museo de arte OhrO'Keefe. Programado para abrirse en julio de 2006, este nuevo museo diseado por Frank Gehry, fue destruido parcialmente en 2005, unos meses antes de la inauguracin. Debido a la fuerza del huracn Katrina un casino flotante de tres pisos se empotr literalmente contra la estructura del museo, destrozndola. Dada la devastacin que dej el huracn en toda la regin, no se pudo retomar el proyecto hasta el ao 2008.

ALGUNOS TEXTOS SOBRE George Ohr Y SU OBRA

George 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,