Carl Krafft

Carl Rudolph Krafft was an important American painter throughout the early 20th century. He belonged to a group of artists called the Ozark Painters, whose work focused on the Ozark Mountains. Born August 23, 1884 in Reading, Ohio, the son of a traveling Lutheran pastor, his family moved and settled on the south side of Chicago in 1890. He remained in the Chicago area for the rest of his life; moving in 1926 to Oak Park, a western suburb that was the center of much Prairie architecture and the birthplace of Ernest Hemingway. He was a popular and influential painter up to his death on October 18, 1938.




Despite being scolded by his teachers for drawing in his textbooks, Krafft was encouraged to pursue art from a young age. However, religion was a significant part of his upbringing and he initially began studies in the seminary before taking nightly art classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. He was not only an incredible artist, but a talented organist and considered studying music also. Krafft was not the first of his family to take an interest in the arts. His ancestor, Adam Krafft (c.1460 – 1509), was a master sculptor in Germany whose self-portrait is pictured to the left. He is featured below the sacramental shrine to Saint Lorenz in Saint Lorenz Church in Nuemburg, Germany.

It wasn’t until Krafft visited relatives in Missouri that he became enamored with the beautiful Ozark Mountains. A lifelong love for painting the region ensued. He traveled annually to the mountains
to paint the transition from fall to winter, capturing the beautiful colors of the changing seasons. The painting pictured below is owned by Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois, just a few short blocks from the Oak Park Art League, which he founded in 1921.

After the stock market crashed in 1929, copies and fakes of Krafft’s original paintings were being circulated. To combat the forgery of his signature and the sale of these paintings under his name, he began marking his paintings with his thumbprint, along with his signature. Below are two images of Krafft’s earlier work. Although his use of rich color mirrors his later pieces, his signature lacks a thumbprint, indicating that they are indeed earlier paintings.


















Krafft enjoyed painting the transition between winter and fall in Ozarks. The cool, blue palette of the distant snow topped mountains showcases this lovely transition and captures the peaceful mood of the scene. The use of the color yellow highlights the tranquility of early morning in the wilderness. In contrast to that painting, the one to the right depicts an earlier fall landscape and features vibrant, autumn hues, creating a sense of warmth and comfort. Krafft’s colorful palette compliments his adaptation of the seasons, both of which were painted in the same area.

Krafft’s talent in the arts would prove to be a secure source of living. As the demand for artists rose, he left his job as a commercial designer to focus solely on his artwork. Throughout his career as a painter he also turned to teaching, and was the founder and president of many art leagues and schools including The Municipal Art League, the Society of Painters of the Forest Preserve, the Society of Ozark Painters, and the Oak Park Art League, which is still active today. He also had the honor of exhibiting his works nationally at such venues as The Art Institute of Chicago, the St. Louis Museum, The John Herron Museum in Indianapolis, the National Academy of Design, Grand Central Art Galleries, and at the Allied Artists of America where he was awarded a gold medal in 1926.

Today, Krafft’s work is still displayed in museums and private collections across the country. His works not only represent the beauty of the Ozark Mountains, but also the group of regionalist painters who devoted their energies to capturing the beauty and quiet spirit of the American Midwest landscape.



Works Cited
http://www.krafft.us/An_Artists_Life/contents.html
http://opal-art.com/historical/krafffall.htm
http://thisoldpalette.blogspot.com/2010/08/carl-krafft.html
http://www.rhlovegalleries.com/site/epage/19599_472.htm


Written and researched by Rachel Swain.

MIR Appraisal Services, Inc.
Principal Appraiser: Farhad Radfar, ISA AM
307 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 308
Chicago, IL 60601
(312) 814-8510

MIR Appraisal Services, Inc., is located just steps from the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Cultural Center; please do give us a ring to set up an appointment for a verbal evaluation of your most prized works of art.

George Edgar Ohr: "The Mad Potter"

George Edgar Ohr (1857-1918) may not be well known internationally, but his artistic production was prolific to say the least. Proud to hold the moniker “Mad Potter of Biloxi” Ohr was always convinced that he would eventually be recognized as a genius, even if it occurred after his death. For the past few years, work was being done on a new museum in his honor to showcase his prodigious oeuvre.

Ohr was born in Mississippi and moved to New Orleans in 1850 where he first experimented in ceramics. He studied under the potter Joseph Fortune Meyer and in the 1880s, traveled all over the states to acquaint himself with the work and interest of other potters. Upon returning to Biloxi in 1883, Ohr built a pottery shop next to his father’s house in hopes of earning a living creating art, not pots. “Pot-Ohr-E” was unsuccessful to say the least. Employing local, red clay from the banks of the Tchoutacabouffa River, Ohr’s creations ranged from ordinary pitchers and planters to his pride and joy, “mud babies”. These were pieces formed into fantastic shapes and glazed with vibrant colors. Although his craftsmanship was remarkable and unmatched by any other potter, Ohr’s style was unappreciated by other artists of the time, lacking the classical style that was popular. Many were interested in his work, but because Ohr refused to sell his pieces for less than what they were worth in gold, his shop faired poorly. The world was not yet worthy for the eccentric and contemporary works of George Edgar Ohr.

After a fire left his pottery shop in ruins, Ohr vigorously labored to complete thousands of pieces, most between the years 1895 and 1905. His created numerous pots, pitchers and vases, all of which mirrored his eccentricity. They were outrageous and amazing, and consisted of wild hues and colors. Their shapes and design were anything but symmetrical and often had a crumpled-bag look to them. Even the handles for his vases and pitchers were unusual. He showcased them at fairs and exhibitions, employing unconventional and wacky advertisements to lure customers, boasting “no two alike”.

As much time and effort Ohr placed on advertising, he hated selling his pieces. Often not wanting to depart from his most beloved works, he would put extravagant prices on them in hopes of deterring any sale. In the rare occasion when a customer did purchase one of his ceramics, he would go to extremes to retrieve the item back, even chasing them down the street, their money in hand. In 1909, at the age of 52, after not selling a “mud baby” for nearly 25 years, Ohr closed his shop and never threw another pot. He spent the rest of his life in madness until he died at the age of 60 of throat cancer.

His “mad” creations and goofy portraits characterize him today as the Salvador Dali of pottery. A self-proclaimed oddball, he thrived on imperfection and often patronized the art world by deliberately distorting his perfectly made objects. Locals thought him insane, while artists of the time simply misunderstood him. He described his work as "unequaled, undisputed, unrivaled”. By the 1950s, a school of Abstract Expressionism ceramics had been born and artists began to take notice of Ohr’s work. Today, his abstract pieces are highly coveted and his work sells for thousands. The world finally accepted Ohr as the great potter he always knew he was.

William Woodward’s “Biloxi Art Pottery,” 1890s. Oil painting. Collection of the Biloxi Public Library.

Researched and written Shanna Seiberlich.

MIR Appraisal Services, Inc.
Principal Appraiser: Farhad Radfar, ISA AM
307 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 308
Chicago, IL 60601
(312) 814-8510

MIR Appraisal Services, Inc., is located just steps from the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Cultural Center; please do give us a ring to set up an appointment for a verbal evaluation of your most prized works of art.

George Catlin

As we prepare for Thanksgiving, MIR would like to highlight an influential artist whose depictions of the Old West and portraits of Native Americans remind us of the origins of the Harvest Feast Holiday. While Thanksgiving is a time for feasts and giving thanks, MIR gives thanks to this prolific artist as he reminds us of the beauty of American Indian culture.




George Catlin was born in Pennsylvania in 1796 to a mother who helped foster his fascination for the American Indians. She recounted stories of the Western Frontier and of her time as a captive of an Indian tribe.

Catlin was inspired by what he called a ‘vanishing race’ and began collecting artifacts and studying the cultures of many tribes throughout North America. He became, by most standards, a historian of Native Americans.

He first studied art at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts and painted members of the Seneca tribe living on a nearby Indian Reservation. Catlin was mostly a portrait painter, depicting the ‘true Americans’ in full garb and face paint to show off their culture and beauty. The portraits he produced included men, women and children from many different tribes including Pawnee, Mandan, Hidatsa, Sioux, Ponca, Arikara, Plains Ojibwa, Plains Cree, Santee, Seminole, Iroquois and countless others.

In 1830, Catlin traveled to St. Louis and met William Clark. He accompanied him to Upper Mississippi, Leavenworth and Ft. Laramie, all the while recording what he saw with both pen and paint. His writings became as famous as his paintings, recounting colorful tales of Indian life and entertaining stories of Catlin’s interactions with the tribesmen and women. His writings, so detailed and thoughtful, would often help him to finish his paintings, re-doing them at a later date to better evoke the realism that his pen took note of.

His writings, paintings, and numerous artifacts ended up, in 1838, in Catlin’s Indian Gallery on display. Catlin wanted to relay all he had learned from his travels out West, and so the artist and writer began giving lectures and recounting his tales of the lives of the American Indians. He also wrote of his experiences in a published book from 1848, titled Illustrations of the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians.




The images George Catlin left behind are colorfully detailed accounts of the American West in the mid 19th century. His passion for the American Indians, their culture, and their impact on North America has spurred countless paintings, writings, and historical documentation from this artist and historian.

The contents from the Indian Gallery now reside in the Smithsonian American Art Museum and American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

So as we all prepare our turkeys on the 25th of November, we should also think back to the influential people who are responsible for Thanksgiving. While many of us think of pilgrims and Indians, what better way to remember than to see the art of George Catlin.




Researched and written Taylor Maatman.

MIR Appraisal Services, Inc.
Principal Appraiser: Farhad Radfar, ISA AM
307 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 308
Chicago, IL 60601
(312) 814-8510

MIR Appraisal Services, Inc., is located just steps from the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Cultural Center; please do give us a ring to set up an appointment for a verbal evaluation of your most prized works of art.