The Mad Potter of Biloxi

George Edgar Ohr was a potter of exceptional skill.  His original training and work was as a functional and commercial potter, typical of the time.  His genius was the way that he treated the clay.  In his later years he worked exclusively in his own eccentric style, leaving the ordinary ware to the people who worked for him.  Don't mistake his work as a collection of "happy Accidents"  His skill allowed him to reproduce these effects at will. What sets his work apart from others of the time, besides his eccentricity of form, are his glazes.  It's taken years for anyone to reproduce most of them, and any one who is familiar with his work is still able to spot repros quickly by examining the glazes. 

It's been estimated that 95% of the work sold on E bay that is attributed to Ohr is fake.  The glazes give them away almost every time. 

 

Another extraordinary aspect of his work is, he didn't sell much of it.  He purposely placed high prices on it.  When he retired, he placed the entire collection, some 9 thousand pieces, in a barn, where they were discovered by a dealer in 1960.  To have an artists work in its relative entirety, in context is almost unheard of.

Arguably the greatest American ceramic artist of the art pottery period, Ohr alienated his contemporaries with unceasing and often tasteless self-promotions which obscured rather than revealed his genius. When he gave up ceramics completely in 1908 he stored the body of work he had created over nearly three decades, with the hope that the Smithsonian would ultimately recognize his talent and acquire the whole collection.