George Ohr (1857-1918) was a functional potter who lived in Biloxi, Mississippi. He was what might be described today as "a character"; a resilient self-promoter, he founded and had to rebuild (because of fire) the Biloxi Art and Novelty Pottery. He also apprenticed in New Orleans with French father and son potters, Francois and Joseph Meyer, using clay from local river banks.
Ohr also assisted Joseph Meyer in establishing the art department of Newcomb College (now part of Tulane University) Nicknamed the “Mad Potter of Biloxi”, he was most well known, not just for his outrageous beard, but for his twisted, pinched, and folded thin walled vessels as well as his colorful, metallic and unusual glazes. In his lifetime he sold very few pots, relying on exhibitions at county fairs to show his wares and support his ten children. But today, due in great measure to the diligent collecting of an antiques dealer from New Jersey, Jim Carpenter, his work is admired and revered. He has finally found his notoriety as the "the potter who was" in the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi, Mississippi.
George Ohr, vase, c. 1900, Billy Dugger photograph, Courtesy of Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art
