George E. Ohr

The self-styled Mad Potter of Biloxi threw vessels with walls as thin as eggshell and then crumpled, pinched, twisted and folded them while the clay was still wet, so a vase looks as if it has been squeezed in a fist. Few collectors understood it in the 1890s, and Ohr stored thousands of pots in his Mississippi workshop rather than sell them cheaply. Rediscovered in the late 1960s, the work now reads as a forecast of abstract sculpture in clay. Look for the ruffled rims and the snake-like handles he added for fun.