The Mad Potter of Biloxi: The Art and Life of George E. Ohr - Hardcover

Clark, Garth; Ellison, Robert A.; Hecht, Eugene

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0896599272 ISBN 13: 9780896599277

Publisher: Abbeville Press, 1989

Synopsis

Misunderstood and unappreciated during his lifetime (1857-1918), George Ohr, America's archetypal artist-potter, pushed the form of the vessel beyond mere function to the point of abstraction. Today the genius of this radical and sophisticated artist has finally been recognized. His thin-walled, paper-light pots, labeled grotesque in his day, are now seen as a tour de force of delicacy and restraint and a stunning exploration of the plasticity of clay. Ruffling, twisting, tearing, and collapsing his fragile pots, Ohr anticipated much of what we take for granted in contemporary art and ceramics.
Stunningly illustrated with 140 color images of his most important pieces, this landmark volume, winner of the George Wittenborn Award for outstanding art books from the Art Libraries Society of North America, presents the first major study of Ohr. Beautifully woven together, the text and images confirm a judgment the Mad Potter once passed on himself: "Unequaled! Unrivaled! Undisputed!" he wrote on a sign outside his shop, "Greatest Art Potter on Earth!"

About this title

About the Author

Garth Clark, a widely published critic and historian of ceramics, is the founding director of the Institute for Ceramic History and the author of Abbeville's American Ceramics: 1976 to the Present and The Eccentric Teapot. Robert A. Ellison, Jr., an artist and author, is a founding member of the American Ceramic Arts Society and has lectured on Ohr. Eugene Hecht is a widely published authority on Ohr and American art pottery and a founding member of the American Ceramic Arts Society. John White is a photographer based in New York whose work ranges from fine art and design to advertising.

Reviews

The self-styled "Biloxi Mud Dauber," Mississippi art potter Ohr (1857-1918) produced thousands of ceramic pieces that were out of step with their time. Detractors have called them bizarre, crude, even ugly, but his supporters saw Ohr as an eccentric genius, a romantic who staked unexplored aesthetic territory with unprecedented shapes and idiosyncratic glazes, and created a polychromatic spectrum of works. A picaresque rebel with flashing eyes and a long white beard, Ohr deemed these pots his "mud babies." Scores of them are on display in this monograph illustrated with 140 color and 100 black-and-white photos. Clark wrote American Ceramics , Ellison is a founder of the American Ceramic Arts Society and Hecht is an editor of Arts and Crafts Quarterly.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Abbeville Press
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0896599272
• ISBN 13: 9780896599277
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192