Photo by Robin Cohn
Tea Pot by Abe Cohn, ca 1980’s. Collection of Robin Cohn
The doors may be locked at Milwaukee museums during the pandemic but most are keeping active with online events and tours. The Jewish Museum Milwaukee is featuring “Fired Up: The Pottery of Abe Cohn,” an exhibition by an important Milwaukee artist. The exhibit is drawn from the collections of the artist’s children and of Milwaukee blues musician Steve Cohen.
The museum’s curator, Molly Dubin, reached out to Cohen “looking for online content to provide to the museum’s subscribers during the pandemic quarantine,” he explains. “I don’t think she knew that I was a potter, she was looking for music content from me. I suggested they consider an online exhibit of my Abe Cohn pottery collection and it went forward from there.”
Dubin isn’t the only person surprised to learn that Cohen, a virtuoso harmonica player and band leader (Leroy Airmaster), throws pottery in between gigs. “Yes, I knew Abe,” Cohen says of his mentor. “When I was in my early 20s, I apprenticed with him for a year and half at his studio in the basement of MIAD. I also went up to the Fish Creek studio a number of times to help out.”
Cohn began as a painter but brought his sensibility to pottery in the 1950s and was a pioneer in the emergence of Door County as an arts and crafts destination with his Potter’s Wheel Gallery. He received several prestigious national awards and mounted what may have been the first one-person show at the institution that became the Milwaukee Art Museum. Cohn passed away in 2013.
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“Our cultural institutions have the power to inspire, comfort and connect people in a way few others can,” says Patti Sherman-Cisler, Jewish Museum Milwaukee’s executive director. “After taking some time to reflect, we decided that we could actively reach out virtually and bring meaningful programs and topics that connect with the community during this unprecedented time.”
“His palette of glaze is very recognizable,” Cohen says of Cohn’s work. “He was always developing new glazes and at the same time tinkering with existing glazes when I worked at his shop. He also had a way of applying colored slips and carving the leather hard clay with applied slip that was another distinctive feature.
“The signature on the bottom of his pots is another way of telling Abe's pots,” Cohen continues. “He had a symbol he used, and also has a numerical identification system in under-glaze pencil that is unique. Abe produced a line of slip cast production ware that is very recognizable, but for me, his one of a kind, hand thrown, reduction fired stoneware and porcelain best expressed Abe's artistic style.”
In addition to “Fired Up,” the Jewish Museum Milwaukee is virtually exploring topics and revisiting objects from its collection. They offer Museum Moments at 2 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays via Facebook Live. The programming is an ongoing storytelling effort following a weekly theme that builds over time. Upcoming topics include the museum’s 12th anniversary, visual arts, Jewish food and social action.
For more information, visit jewishmuseummilwaukee.org.
