Walter Anderson Museum of Art
Ocean Springs
An incredibly prolific painter, printmaker and potter, Walter Inglis Anderson was brother to Peter Anderson, who founded Shearwater Pottery Workshop. Walter worked with his brother there for a period before going on to create his own signature style of nature-focused art in diverse media.
The Walter Anderson Museum of Art is dedicated to showcasing his works in a natural setting inspired by the remote wilderness cabins and other settings that fueled Anderson’s work. The museum, which opened in 1991 near his home of many decades, can accommodate tour groups of up to 60 at one time, and groups can conclude their visit with a printmaking activity re-creating one of Anderson’s works.
In the Ocean Springs Community Center, connected to the museum, groups can also see the largest mural ever created by the painter, who was known for his large-format works, among them 30-foot-long block prints that were, at the time, the largest ever created by an American.
Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art
Biloxi
Originally designed as a homage to Biloxi potter George Ohr, who is widely regarded as a precursor to the American abstract and expressionist art movements, the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art has become an expression of the personalities of three great men from the art world: Ohr; patron, former Mayor and Sen. Jerry O’Keefe; and architect Frank Gehry, who designed the dramatic campus.
“We call ourselves more of an art and culture center than a museum,” said executive director Kevin O’Brien. “We do a lot of popular culture exhibits. We have a major baseball exhibit for six months, vintage motorcycles in 2017, and cars and art every year. We also have a ceramics studio, two music galleries, and musicians and baseball players that drop by to give talks.”
In keeping with Ohr’s ceramics tradition, groups have the opportunity to create their own pottery in the studio, and the museum will arranging shipping home of the pieces after they’ve been fired. Depending on what the group wants to create and whether the 12 on-site pottery wheels will be used, groups should allot 20 minutes to two hours for that experience. Groups can also hold private luncheons in the welcome center’s ballroom overlooking the gulf.
The campus also includes a faithful reconstruction of the home of freed slave and architect Pleasant Reed, which was washed away during Hurricane Katrina but was rebuilt using Reed’s drawings.
