Much like his pottery, George E. Ohr defied convention and embraced color and chaos during his life. The Biloxi-born ceramicist saw little commercial success prior to his death in 1918 despite his prolific output, eventually earning the nickname “the Picasso of pottery.”
Ohr’s pottery and legacy has a permanent home on the Biloxi Bay at the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art, a multi-building campus designed by renowned architect Frank O. Gehry. Next month, the final piece of Gehry’s design will come to fruition more than two decades after construction began: the ceramics building’s ‘Grand Marilyn Staircase,’ named for its curvy, Marilyn Monroe-esque shape.
Ohr’s pottery is a focal point of the museum, which houses a collection of more than 200 works. Using red clay he collected from the banks of the Tchoutacabouffa River, Ohr molded his pieces in a signature flamboyant style — bowls that appear crumpled and folded, vases with human faces, dramatically elongated pitchers — using glazes in rich, vivid colors that were uncommon at the turn of the 20th century.
In addition to creating ceramics in unusual forms, Ohr’s quirky antics helped earn him attention. He called his pieces “mud babies” and himself “George Ohr, M.D.”, with M.D. standing for “mud dauber,” according to Smithsonian magazine. But his works largely went unsold. It wasn’t until nearly 50 years after his death that he gained a serious following, when an antiques dealer hunting for auto parts stopped at a Biloxi repair shop owned by Ohr’s son and found thousands of Ohr’s pottery pieces packed in crates, collecting dust. After years of negotiations, the dealer eventually bought the collection and sold it off to art collectors, kicking off a widespread appreciation for Ohr’s novel approach to the craft.
Today, the museum campus serves as a creative arts hub for Biloxi and the surrounding Gulf Coast communities. It’s home to the City of Biloxi Center for Ceramics, Gallery of African American Art, IP Casino Resort Spa Exhibitions Gallery, Mississippi Sound Welcome Center, and Pleasant Reed Interpretative Center in addition to the permanent collection of Ohr’s pottery.
Photo: Visit Mississippi
Visitors to Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art can participate in ceramics classes, art workshops and a steady lineup of events, from live concerts to yoga classes. New exhibitions routinely highlight the work of Southern artists of all mediums. New this month, “The Fisher People” exhibition at the Biloxi Center for Ceramics showcases the photographs of Olivia Aylsworth and Tim Isbell, who documented Vietnamese immigrant communities living along the Gulf Coast and their impact on the local fishing industry.