Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art

The Ohr-O'Keefe Museum is housed in a Frank Gehry complex of five distinctive buildings — curved, titanium-clad pods that tumble across a wooded site near downtown. The museum was largely conceived before Hurricane Katrina, completed afterward, and now stands as one of the more improbable architectural events on the Gulf Coast. The Gehry buildings house both the Ohr collection and changing contemporary art exhibitions.

George Ohr himself was a genuinely eccentric figure — he styled himself "the Mad Potter of Biloxi," grew an enormous handlebar moustache, and created pottery of startling formal invention that nobody much wanted to buy during his lifetime. The collection here is the best place to see his work, and it rewards the visit even for those who come primarily for the architecture.

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A story
George Ohr, the "Mad Potter of Biloxi," produced over 10,000 pieces of pottery in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and sold almost none of them — he was convinced his work would be recognised after his death. He stored thousands of pots in his children's attic, where they were discovered in 1968. He was right: his eccentric, thin-walled, twisted forms are now recognised as precursors of Abstract Expressionism and worth serious money.

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