On the Midway: George Ohr’s Journey into a New Century
June 18, 2004 – August 27, 2005
The Centenial Exhibition explored George E. Ohr’s journeys through 16 states in the early 1880s and his displays at numerous world’s fairs, beginning with the World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition in New Orleans in 1884. Although Ohr never received the recognition he deserved during his lifetime, George Ohr’s Journey into a New Century: On The Midway honored him one hundred years after the silver medal he received at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904. The exhibition explored Ohr as the archetype of an American treasure: a self-made man and undefeatable survivor of the challenges of art and life. The exhibition also explored the societal trends at the turn of the 19th century in terms of Ohr’s highly modern work and the decades of World’s Fairs & Expositions that took Americans into the modern world of the 20th century.