Bernard Leach
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Bernard Howell Leach CH (January 5, 1887 – May 6, 1979), a British studio potter.
Bernard Leach was born in a home in Hong Kong, but spent his young adult years in Japan where he came into contact with a group of young, art-interested Japanese, calling themselves Shirakaba (白樺). Through them he learned about William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement. It was in Japan that Leach began potting under the direction of Shigekichi Urano (Kenzan VI) and befriended a young potter named Shoji Hamada. With Hamada, he set up the Leach Pottery at St. Ives, Cornwall in 1920, including the construction of a traditional Japanese wood burning kiln. The two of them promoted pottery as a combination of Western and Eastern arts and philosophies. In their work they focused on traditional Korean, Japanese and Chinese pottery, in combination with traditional techniques from England and Germany, like slipware and salt glaze ware. They saw pottery as a combination of art, philosophy, design and craft – even as a greater lifestyle. However, many in the West considered their pottery crude by the refined standards of the day. Publishing A Potter's Book in 1940 defined Leach's craft philosophy and techniques, and became his breakthrough to recognition.
Leach advocated making utilitarian, so-called ethical pots over fine art pots, which promote aesthetic concerns rather than function. Thus, his style had a lot of influence on counter-culture and modern design in North America during the 1950s and 1960s. He aspired to running a modern cooperative workshop which created a catalog of handmade pottery for the general public. Many potters from all over the world apprenticed at the Leach Pottery, and spread Leach's style and beliefs. For example, many of his Canadian apprentices made up the vibrant pottery-scene of the Canadian Westcoast during the 1970s in Vancouver. His American apprentices include Warren MacKenzie (who likewise influenced a generation of potters through his teaching at the University of Minnesota), Byron Temple, Clary Illian and Jeff Oestrich. He was a major influence on the leading New Zealand potter Len Castle who travelled to London to spend time working with him in the mid 1950s.
Leach formally joined the Bahá'í Faith in 1940. A pilgrimage to the Bahá'í shrines in Haifa, Israel, during 1954 intensified his feeling that he should do more to unite the East and West by returning to the Orient to "to try more honestly to do my work there as a Bahá'í and as an artist..."1
He continued to produce work until 1972 and never ended his passion for travelling, which made him a precursor of today's artistic globalism. He continued to write about ceramics even after losing his eyesight. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London held a major exhibition of his art in 1977. The Leach pottery still remains open today, accompanied by a museum displaying many pieces by Leach and his students.
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[edit] Notes
- Weinberg, Robert (ed.) (1999). Spinning the Clay into Stars, Bernard Leach and the Bahá'í Faith. pp. 21 & 29. George Ronald, Oxford. ISBN 0-85398-440-9.
