| Pottery
Company dissolved and became the New
Orleans Art Pottery Club, which engaged Ohr and Meyer
for over two years, until the Woodward brothers decided
to form the art department of Newcomb College (now part
of Tulane University). Newcomb College Pottery prided
itself on producing "no two alike". Ohr used
this philosophy to his advantage. It became his mantra
and described the unique quality of his ‘mud babies.’
Ohr returned to Biloxi, but remained involved with the
New Orleans Art Pottery/Newcomb College endeavor through
1896.
George
had married Josephine Gehring in 1888 and in 1890
created a new pottery, the Biloxi Art and Novelty
Pottery. With his long moustache and offbeat sense of
humor, George developed an eccentric persona. He and
Josephine had ten children, but only five survived to
adulthood. Many of Ohr’s family remained in Biloxi,
and today they make up a number of the oldest families
on the Gulf Coast.
George’s
new pottery buildings burned in 1894, and over 10,000
works were destroyed. Ohr’s life was a study in
stamina and resilience; he always persevered and started
over. Despite his reputation for eccentricity, George
Ohr was a hard worker. In the later part of his life, he
produced quality art pottery that would be appreciated
and remembered for centuries. George cultivated the idea
that he was crazy, calling himself ‘The Mad Potter of
Biloxi.’ He said that he was ‘unrivaled’ or ‘unequalled’
and was, by his own estimation, the ‘world’s
greatest potter.’ His antics, self-promotion, and
playful spirit are what people remember, rather than
what was more likely the case—a determined artist who
sought to create attention to his creative production
through his eccentric character.
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Ohr’s
skills exploded when he became an ‘artist-potter.’
His claim there were ‘no two alike’ was true. The
pinched, folded and twisted clay forms, thinness of the
clay wall, fluidity of form, tendril-like handles, and
freshness of Ohr’s creations illustrate a technical
skill that is still unrivaled. One hundred years later,
potters marvel at his skill and cannot rightly say
exactly how it was done. Critics of the day praised Ohr’s
glazes, but as his admiration for pure forms executed in
clay increased, he left many pieces unglazed in bisque
form. |
He believed only in this state could the form be
clearly perceived. Today we have a legacy of Ohr’s
bisque pieces that act as a sampler of his pinches,
folds, and fabulously thin-walled clay creations.
Though
he was recognized as an artist to some extent, it was
only at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, that he
received any official awards, the Silver Medal. He felt
he was unappreciated, misunderstood, and lacked a
lasting reputation. To combat the feeling of having no
artistic ‘immortality,’ in 1900 he addressed a box
of work to the Smithsonian Institution, with it an
inscription, "I am the potter who was."
By
1907, Ohr’s health began to fail. In 1910, he turned
over the building to his son for an auto repair shop,
but in a final stroke of humor, Ohr named it the ‘Ohr
Boys Aut2 Repair Shop.’ George took to riding a
motorcycle in his last days, with moustache flying. He
died in April 7 1917.
In
the late Sixties, Jim Carpenter, an antique dealer, came
to Biloxi in search of parts for antique cars and was
directed to the Aut2 Repair Shop. He was shown boxes of
George Ohr’s work. After negotiating for several
years, Carpenter bought the entire lot of work, took it
home to New Jersey, and started slowly selling it to the
rising group of collectors interested in the ‘Mad
Potter of Biloxi.’ In 1973, Carpenter saw to it that
the box addressed to the Smithsonian was delivered. In a
turn of events that would have pleased George Ohr
enormously, the museum bearing his name and celebrating
his genius became an affiliate of the Smithsonian
Institution in 2002. The interest in Ohr’s work that
was rekindled with Carpenter’s purchase continues to
escalate today, and now George Ohr is considered a
genius with pottery, "pushing the expressionistic
limits of clay to its …limits."
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