George Ohr (1857-1918) was the most revolutionary art potter of his time. Working in the relative isolation of Biloxi, Mississippi, around the turn of the century, he transformed symmetrical wheel-thrown pots into unprecedented abstract configurations

A brilliantly written, lavishly produced volume on an important yet little- known clay artist.

Pottery, Politics, Art uses the medium of clay to explore the nature of spectacle, bodies, and boundaries. The book analyzes the sexual and social obsessions of three of America's most intense potters, artists who used the liminal potentials of clay to explore the horrors and delights of our animal selves. Richard D. Mohr revives from undeserved obscurity the far-southern Illinois potting brothers Cornwall and Wallace Kirkpatrick (1814-90, 1828-96) and examines the significance of the haunting, witty, and grotesque wares of the brothers' Anna Pottery (1859-96). He then traces the Kirkpatricks' decisive influence on a central figure in the American Arts and Crafts movement, George Ohr (1857-1918), known as the Mad Potter of Biloxi and arguably America's greatest potter. Finally, Mohr gives a new reading to Ohr's contorted, yet lyrical and ecstatic works. Abundant full-color and black-and-white photographs illustrate this remarkable art.

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Verdana} At the height of the Arts and Crafts era in Europe and the United States, American ceramics were transformed from industrially produced ornamental works to handcrafted art pottery. Celebrated ceramists such as George E. Ohr, Hugh C. Robertson, and M. Louise McLaughlin, and prize-winning potteries, including Grueby and Rookwood, harnessed the potential of the medium to create an astonishing range of dynamic forms and experimental glazes. Spanning the period from the 1870s to the 1950s, this volume chronicles the history of American art pottery through more than three hundred works in the outstanding collection of Robert A. Ellison Jr. In a series of fascinating chapters, the authors place these works in the context of turn-of-the-century commerce, design, and social history. Driven to innovate and at times fiercely competitive, some ceramists strove to discover and patent new styles and aesthetics, while others pursued more utopian aims, establishing artist communities that promoted education and handwork as therapy. Written by a team of esteemed scholars and copiously illustrated with sumptuous images, this book imparts a full understanding of American art pottery while celebrating the legacy of a visionary collector.

In Art in Mississippi Patti Carr Black focuses on several hundred significant artists and showcases in full color the work of more than two hundred. Nationally acclaimed native Mississippians are hereGeorge Ohr, Walter Anderson, Marie Hull, Theora Hamblett, William Dunlap, Sam Gilliam, William Hollingsworth, Jr., Karl Wolfe, Mildred Nungester Wolfe, John McCrady, Ed McGowin, James Seawright, and many others. Prominent artists who lived or worked in the state for a significant period of time are included as well - John James Audubon, Louis Comfort Tiffany, George Caleb Bingham, William Aiken Walker, and more. Black explores how art reflects the land and how modes of living and values dictated by Mississippi's changing topography created a variety of art forms. She demonstrates the influence of Mississippi's diverse cultures upon the art and shows how it has responded in many forms - painting, architecture, sculpture, fine crafts - to the changing aesthetics of national art movements.