The Peculiar Truth about the Mad Potter of Biloxi
- Dan Spencer
- Dec 13, 2022
- 3 min read
Summer 1968: A New Jersey man named James Carpenter came upon an automotive garage in Biloxi, Mississippi in search of old auto parts.
One of the garage proprietors, an older man named Ojo Ohr, engaged the Northerner in conversation.
When Mr. Ohr learned that the stranger was an antiques dealer, he invited Mr. Carpenter to see the handmade artwork of his long-deceased father, George Ohr.
In an attic above the garage were thousands of strange and unique works of colorful pottery that had collected dust for 50 years since George Ohr’s death.
Carpenter marveled at the sight and knew he’d stumbled upon an undiscovered art trove.
Growing up in America’s Reconstruction Era, young George Ohr was always an odd bird, and he would grow ever more eccentric throughout his life.
New Orleans, 1880: He fell in love with the potter’s wheel and found his calling.
He created his own studio, complete with a kiln. Then he waded through bayous and rivers to find the best clay.
To pay the bills, Ohr crafted utilitarian pottery such as vases and water jugs. But art was his passion.
His artistic bowls and vases had crazy shapes, not the usual symmetry. Some curved inward or seemed altogether haphazard with thin handles.
Colorful pottery was uncommon then, but Ohr’s works blended all sorts of shades and hues.
He called his earliest work ‘mud babies,’ and he lost many of them in his studio’s accidental fire. Such was the danger of working with a kiln.
But Ohr rebuilt, and not just another simple structure. Instead, he created a five-story pagoda as his new workshop.
He adorned the building with eccentric signs declaring his “Pot-Ohr-Ee” and “Greatest Art Potter on Earth, You Prove the Contrary.”
Neighbors found George Ohr highly eccentric. They saw a wildness in his eyes and figured him for a lunatic. He didn’t care.
He grew his mustache and beard long and pointy - long before Salvador Dali adopted a similar look. He could tie the ends of his mustache behind the back of his head.
When he was 29, Ohr married a teenager named Josephine.
Together they had 8 children. Their names were Leo, Clo, Lio, Oto, Flo, Zio, Ojo and Geo.
1904: Ohr traveled to the World’s Fair in St. Louis to exhibit his works, and he won an award. But he sold none of them. Art patrons found his work too strange.
Ohr rarely sold his pottery in Biloxi, either, in part because he charged outrageously high prices but also because he hated parting with his creations.
He was forever broke, and in 1909 at age 52, Ohr retired from the pottery business.
He remained eccentric, however, and could often be seen around Biloxi during Mardi Gras disguised as Father Time.
Cancer struck him down in 1918 at age 60. George Ohr’s sons inherited his property.
Rather than throwing away their father’s crazy art pottery, they stashed it in an attic where thousands of works remained untouched for half a century.
1968: After much negotiation over several years, James Carpenter bought the lot of pottery for a large lump sum and shipped it all to New York.
Over time, George Ohr’s artistic genius became widely recognized and highly valuable.
His pottery was collected by Andy Warhol, Jack Nicholson, and Jasper Johns, among others.
Today, George Ohr’s colorful, eccentric artwork resides in the Smithsonian, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi.
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