HEART, HEAD & HAND

A potter is one of the few people left who uses his natural faculties of heart, head and hand in balance – the whole man. His is a way of life. Good pots require the ardor of vocation and the devotion of a lifetime.

Bernard Leach, Belief and Hope 1951

The Leach Pottery was established by Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada in 1920. Since that date around 120 potters, students and artists from around the world have worked and trained here.

In Britain Leach’s associates and trainees included Michael Cardew, Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie, Nora Braden, his sons David Leach and Michael Leach, William Marshall, Sylvia Hardaker, Kenneth Quick and Richard Batterham. His American apprentices included his third wife Janet Darnell Leach Warren MacKenzie (who likewise influenced many potters through his teaching at the University of Minnesota), Byron Temple, Clary Illian and Jeff Oestrich. Leach 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. Many of his Canadian apprentices made up the pottery scene of the Canadian west coast during the 1970s in Vancouver.

The current exhibition focuses on just six of these potters – chosen not for the length of time they spent here but for their vital role within the history of the Leach Pottery.

Contributors: