BOCA RATON—We’ve already written on the landmark exhibition Regarding George Ohr: Contemporary Ceramics in the Spirit of the Mad Potter at Boca Raton Museum of Art (November 7, 2017 – April 8, 2018) on numerous occasions, but we love this editorial from Artsy, who interviewed none other than ceramics expert and our Editor-in-Chief Garth Clark, and we wanted to make sure you ceramophiles took a gander.
Featured image: George Ohr, Tall dark green incised vase, 1895–c. 1900. Courtesy of the Collection of Marty and Estelle Shack. Photo by Phillip Ennis
The iconoclastic, Biloxi-born George Ohr was a wildly imaginative, unorthodox and inventive potter during the in the late 19th and early 20th centuries rejecting ornamentation and sometimes even color and glaze leaving his pots bare, so much so, he earned his nickname the “Mad Potter of Biloxi.”
Initially snubbed by his contemporaries within the Art and Crafts movement, Ohr continued to pursue his work in earnest, Artsy writes, truding forward continuing to make his writhing forms, but it wasn’t until 50 years after his death, that other began to catch up.
“He was 50 years ahead of his time and the interesting thing about him was: He knew it.” -Garth Clark.
Today, Ohr is praised as a major pioneer of American ceramics, having his work
He has a Frank Gehry-designed museum in his name, his works can be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian. At auction, a large vase with handles, doused in a signature kaleidoscopic glaze, has gone for as much as $84,000.
Read more from Artsy’s Editorial here.
George E. Ohr, Vase, 1897–1900. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
George E. Ohr, Vase, Courtesy of the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art, Biloxi, Mississippi
George E. Ohr, Vase, Courtesy of the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art, Biloxi, Mississippi
George Ohr, Light-colored mottled teapot, 1895–c. 1900. Courtesy of the Collection of Marty and Estelle Shack. Photo by Phillip Ennis
George E. Ohr, Teapot, 1897–1900. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
George Ohr, Very tall, mottled two-handled vase, 1895–c. 1900. Courtesy of the Collection of Marty and Estelle Shack. Photo by Phillip Ennis
Related reads:
http://cfileonline.wpengine.com/exhibition-garth-clark-on-regarding-george-ohr-at-boca-raton-museum-of-art/
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