Lot 64

Bernard Leach: Artist and Potter By Jane Wilkinson, Independent Curator and former Curator of the East Asian Collections at the National Museums of Scotland Bernard Leach is renowned as the father of British studio pottery and leader of the revival of traditional handmade pottery in England. Less well known is his aptitude for drawing and poetry (see lots 64-77). He was also a prolific writer on both pots and philosophy fostering strong links between Eastern and Western ideas. Born in Hong Kong in 1887 he moved to Japan to live with his mother's parents as she had died in childbirth. In 1890 his father remarried and Leach returned to live with him first in Hong Kong then Singapore. Educated in England he found he had an aptitude for drawing and attended the Slade School of Art when only 16. His father's death required Leach to undertake training in commerce and a position in a bank but at 21 access to his inheritance gave him the freedom to follow his artistic ambitions and attend the London School of Art under Frank Brangwyn. He discovered etching and sensed that his strengths lay with line rather than paint. A fellow student was Takamura Kotaro, a Japanese sculptor. Influenced by this friendship and the romantic writings of Lafcadio Hearn on Japan he planned to move there to practise as an artist and a teacher. When he arrived in Japan in 1909 with a large etching press and many paintings to demonstrate his artistic credentials the Takamura family provided many useful introductions. He wrote an article introducing etching to the Japanese Art World, for an art magazine and gave a lecture demonstration at what is now Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. Demonstrating etching at an exhibition of his work brought Leach to the notice of a group of radical students especially Yanagi Soetsu, the editor of their monthly journal Shirakaba [silver birch]. Yanagi was a young writer and art critic whose lifelong friendship influenced both profoundly. It was "a source of spiritual and intellectual support that was warm, rigorous and mutually understanding".1 Shikaraba introduced literary and artistic ideas from the West to an exclusive but influential Japanese audience. Leach contributed articles and during 1913 designed all the journal covers. He enjoyed stimulating intellectual discussion with members of the group about the visionary ideas of William Blake and Walt Whitman and the art of van Gogh, Cezanne, Rodin and Leonardo de Vinci. With Yanagi he constantly questioned the qualities of 'truth and beauty' and what constituted Art. In Japanese museums he was introduced to Eastern Art, particularly paintings and pottery, but it wasn't until the summer of 1911 that his passion for pottery was ignited. He exhibited etchings, textile designs and woodcuts at Gahosha, a small independent art gallery in central Tokyo which showed the work of young artists. He and a fellow artist Tomimoto Kenkichi (see lot 101), were invited to a raku party. Small biscuit fired pots were provided for guests to decorate before glazing and a second firing. Rapid cooling speeded up the process allowing guests to see the results after about an hour. Leach was inspired by the transformation of colour and design on the pots and desired to learn more about making pottery. He found a teacher Urano Shigekichi, who worked in the Ogata Kenzan tradition and was the "Sixth Generation Kenzan" (see lot 103). Initially Tomimoto was interpreter but soon he too was studying pottery with Urano and a lasting friendship developed between the two apprentices who both became well known artist potters. Urano taught Leach an appreciation of form and how to handle a brush for ceramic decoration, two skills that Leach was to practice and perfect for the rest of his life. By early 1913 Leach was regularly producing pots in his own workshop in Urano's garden, often drawing the forms in his diary first. His pots were small deriving from historical styles such as eighteenth century English slip decorated earthenware fired by the raku method and Chinese porcelains. He and Tomimoto held exhibitions together though Leach still saw himself as an artist and designer rather than a potter. Although Tominoto was committed to pottery and moved away to set up a pottery in Amdo, Leach was still searching for his identity both artistically and spiritually. He decided to go to China where from 1914-1917 he was involved in social reform and though he continued to draw and write he gave up pottery. Two soft ground etchings of the Temple of Heaven and the Chien-Men Gate in Beijing 1916 are from this period (see lots 73-74). Yanagi visited him in China keen to explore Chinese culture but was also concerned about Leach's artistic work. As they travelled around the great sites Yanagi rekindled Leach's interest in pots and suggested he return to Japan where he gave him land near his home at Abiko outside Tokyo to set up a pottery. Back in Japan Leach committed to professional pottery working within a small supportive artistic community based at Abiko. His appreciation of the form of Chinese Song dynasty wares and their distinctive celadon and tenmoku glazes informed his evolving style which included tea sets, bowls and plates with restrained brushwork decoration. He was still interested in English slip decorated ware producing large dishes (see lot 87) with imaginative and lively designs in vigorous slip-trailed decoration which he continued developing at St Ives in Cornwall. However he still saw himself as a designer of both functional and decorative objects including furniture. A visit with Yanagi to Korea had a profound effect on Leach. He recognised the spontaneity and grace of Korean art echoing the line of its landscape. However it brought him face to face with the Japan's growing militarism and a need to return home to England. In Abiko he met Hamada Shoji, a ceramicist who was a great help in the explanation of glazes and reduction firing. On learning that Leach was to set up a pottery in St Ives, Cornwall Hamada asked to accompany him. Together they established the Leach pottery in 1920 and explored traditional English slip decorating techniques. Leach recorded that they had discovered 80 of the forgotten techniques by the time Hamada returned to Japan in 1923. St Ives remained his primary base for the rest of his life though he also had a workshop at Dartington in Devon, where he enjoyed the patronage of Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst who shared his love of oriental aesthetics. Leach continued to produce three types of ware, raku, lead glazed earthenware known as Galena because of its yellow glaze and high fired stoneware and porcelain. The Leach Pottery attracted many apprentices and students who were employed in making a range of tableware known as Leach Pottery Standard-ware (see lot 104). Designed and often decorated by Leach, these subdued functional wares were more affordable than the exhibition stoneware. Another commercial venture was to decorate tiles for fireplaces, an appropriate medium for Leach's fine brushwork and motifs such as the tree of life. Leach exhibited mainly in London and Japan but also in Europe and the USA. He travelled widely spending several periods in Japan, the USA, Australia and New Zealand where he gave lectures and demonstrations and visited many folk potteries. He wrote several books notably A Potter's Book2, a synthesis of his experience as a potter grounded on understanding of oriental aesthetics and the appropriate use of materials within the contemporary concerns of the artists who worked with him at St Ives. He also wrote books about the Kenzan pottery tradition in Japan and the philosophical writings of Yanagi Soetsu. He called Japan his second home and here he was greatly respected and revered. His exhibitions of pots, etchings, textile designs and furniture sold out as soon as they opened. He was awarded the Japan Foundation Cultural award in 1974 and saw himself as a bridge between East and West. His book Beyond East and West3 explores his work as a potter and writer in that context. Together he and Hamada Shoji contributed to "a quiet, benign, non-violent revolution in the potters art, which has been gaining converts ever since"4. Though written on Leach's death in May 1979 by Michael Cardew, Leach's first apprentice at St Ives, these words still ring true. Today there is a revival of interest in Bernard Leach and British studio pottery paralleled by a new awareness of Mingei, the folk craft movement in Japan. 1. Cooper, Emmanuel. Bernard Leach Life and Work Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2003 2. Leach, Bernard, A Potters Book (introductions by Yanagi Soetsu and Michael Cardew) Faber and Faber, London 1940. Third edition 1975. 3. Leach Bernard, Beyond East and West: Memoirs Portraits and Essays. Faber and Faber. London 1978 4. Cardew, Micheal, Obituary for Bernard leach, Spectator 12th May 1979. Jane Wilkinson, independent curator and former curator of the East Asian Collections at the National Museums of Scotland. Micheal Dean arrived in St Ives in the late 1950's. Initially living in a 1927 Model "A" Ford, he was soon to be offered a long fish loft along the top of Porthmeor Beach which was to become his studio. When Bernard Leach later purchased this loft as his studio, Micheal found a new studio above the Penwith Society of Arts Gallery and created the Steps Gallery. He began showing the work of Janet Leach, Terry Frost, Brian Wall, Tony Shiels and many other artists. His collection of Bernard Leach and circle began to be formed and continued when he returned to London in 1960.

Bernard Leach (1887-1979)

SCENE IN DORSET (WAREHAM MEADS)

Details

Bernard Leach (1887-1979)
Scene in Dorset (Wareham Meads)
Etching, circa 1908, framed and glazed; accompanied by the catalogue of the exhibition Bernard Leach Fifty Years a Potter, (The Arts Council, 1961); and a letter from Gabriel White, Director of Art at the Arts Council of Great Britian noting the success of the exhibition
14.1 x 21cm. (the plate) (3)

Provenance

Bernard Leach
Oscar Warner
Peter Highley

Literature

Arts Council Gallery, London, Fifty Years a Potter - Bernard Leach Retrospective Exhibition, (The Arts Council, 1961), p.37, no. 194.
Exhibition Catalogue, The English Arts and Crafts Movement and Hamada Shoji, (Japan, 1997-8), p.112, no. 144

Simon Olding, The Etchings of Bernard Leach, (The Crafts Study Centre in partnership with the Leach Pottery, 2010), p.35, no.8

Exhibited

Arts Council Gallery, London, Fifty Years a Potter - Bernard Leach Retrospective Exhibition, 1961
The English Arts and Crafts Movement and Hamada Shoji, Japan, 1997-8

Sale room notice

Please note that this etching was also published in Simon Olding, The Etchings of Bernard Leach, published by the Crafts Study Centre in partnership with the Leach Pottery, 2010, p.35, no.8.

Lot Essay

This etching is from a sketch produced during the summer of 1908, when Bernard Leach stayed at Northmoor Farm, before returning to London for a brief spell of further study at the London School of Art.

Prints by Bernard Leach from early editions are rare. This is either an artist's proof or a print from an early edition, printed in London in the winter of 1908. It was in the artist's collection and included by him in the exhibition, Bernard Leach - Fifty Years a Potter in 1961.

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