©1999-2015
Wisconsin Pottery Association
P.O. Box 705
Madison WI 53701-0705
George Ohr
1857-1918
Biloxi Mississippi
NEW BOOK ON GEORGE OHR
By Richard Mohr
The following article appeared in WPA Press, Vol. 15, Winter 2003
| In April of 1999 Richard Mohr presented a slideshow on George Ohr and
his relation to the Anna Pottery to the Wisconsin Pottery Association.
Professor Mohr has now expanded the slideshow into a book, which the
University of Illinois will publish in March 2003, entitled “Pottery,
Politics, Art: George Ohr and the Brothers Kirkpatrick”. Richard Mohr
shares this introduction to the book. “Pottery, Politics, Art: George Ohr and the Brothers Kirkpatrick” uses the medium of clay to explore the nature of spectacle, bodies and boundaries. It 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. “Pottery, Politics, Art” revives from undeserved obscurity the far-southern Illinois potting brothers Cornwall and Wallace Kirkpatrick (1814–90, 1828–96, respectively) and examines the significance of the haunting, witty and grotesque wares of the brothers’ Anna Pottery (1859–96). The book 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 the book gives a new reading to Ohr’s contorted, yet lyrical and ecstatic works Of Mohr’s talk to the Wisconsin Pottery Association (April 1999) The Antique Trader reported:” Critics have long considered the Anna snake jugs to be propaganda for the temperance movement, but Mohr postulates convincingly that the jugs were parodies and that the brothers were politically progressive. Mohr also argues that the Kirkpatricks’ influence on George Ohr’s art is significantly greater than previously thought.” One aim of the book is to draw the decorative arts into the critical mainstream of art history. Nancy Owen, author of Rookwood and the Industry of Art, has said of the book, “Pottery, Politics, Art” provides not just new interpretations but new categories for inquiry as well. In engaging, witty, debate-generating prose, Mohr takes studies in the decorative arts to a new level of critical sophistication.” Printed entirely on coated stock for quality reproduction of illustrations, the book contains 23 full-color plates and 113 black and white photographs, including many previously unpublished works by Ohr and the Kirkpatricks. The book has 272 pages and a trim size of 7 × 10 inches. The ISBN is 0_252_02789_2. The author is a professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Classicist, social theorist and public intellectual, Mohr has also written extensively on art and architecture in such journals as Architectural Record, Art Issues, the Journal of the American Art Pottery Association and Style 1990. For more information on the book, see its webpage at the University of Illinois Press’ website: www.press.uillinois.edu/s03/mohr.html |
 The Brothers Kirkpatrick, snake jug (Courtesy of the Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).
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