Bernard Leach: Life and Work, then, is more than a book. Cooper completely misses the theater of the moment. Emmanuel Cooper. I do not mean this to sound demeaning, but biography is an elusive art form. Leach left his Cornish studio to study pottery management at Stoke-on-Trent. Even Josiah Wedgwood, one of the giants of the eighteenth century—a social visionary, gifted inventor, pioneering mass marketer, effective publicist, creative glaze chemist, and intimate of the leading scientists and scholars of his age—has yet to receive a biography worthy of his place in history. The son of a colonial judge, Leach had lived in Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore by 1897.In that year he traveled to England and later (1903–08) studied at the Slade School of Art. How much time, space, and wordage should we continue to give to a man who is an anomaly, who did not influence his time except in a regressive manner, who left little enduring as artist or writer? Garth Clark, The Potter’s Art: A Complete History of Pottery in Britain (London: Phaidon, 1995), p. 154. No potter was more influential or held in higher esteem in the 20th century than Bernard Leach. Cooper would have benefited from a stronger editor. The building was sold to a private buyer, Alan Gilham, before being acquired by Penwith District Council as part of the Leach Restoration Project. In 1921 he returned to England with Shoji Hamada and set up his pottery in Saint Ives, Cornwall.
He is regarded as the "Father of British studio pottery". The supporting cast, filled with such intriguing, forceful personalities as Michael Cardew and Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie, fare even less well. He returned to put his newly acquired knowledge to good use, and immediately made several changes to his Cornish pottery. Their encounter is given the standard half-paragraph treatment.

His pottery studio is still a fully functioning pottery, producing high quality items, whilst at the same time training the new generation of studio potters. Bernard Leach: Life and Work. Followers. Follow. Questions about the accuracy of several of his books and claims of cultural distortion have hurt his credibility as a writer. His father was a high-court justice who worked in the colonies. It is a small market that favors how-to books over all others, and potters are notoriously anti-academic and anti-intellectual, hardly an encouraging field for the serious biographer. ©2018 Artnet Worldwide Corporation. Given this profile Leach would seem to be a perfect focus for the biographer: a complex and often troubled man, exotic locales, art, fame, family conflicts, controversy, and even a dash of sex, as Leach, despite his stuffy formal appearance, was something of a womanizer. Context is not required of a journal, which is published mainly for those who already know the subject and want to explore more deeply. Notable Works. As Leach aged (he led a long life, dying at ninety-two), two conflicting responses emerged to his regime. Beginning in the Entrance Gallery you will have the chance to see a collection of works by Bernard Leach, Janet Leach & Shoji Hamada, among others. Ceramics is not a field that has attracted many biographers. Thanks to Cooper we now know more about his childhood, his life and beliefs, and his diary of activities but nothing about his cultural relevance or value. For example, in 1952 Leach met Peter Voulkos at the Archie Bray Foundation during a lecture tour of America by Leach, Shoji Hamada, and Soetsu Yanagi. Leach was born in Hong Kong. Missing Cornwall? Note that the listings on this site are a unique compilation of information and are protected by copyright worldwide.

New Haven and London: Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2003. xvii + 419 pp.
following. Alarmed that I seemed too ready to write off a major book about a major figure written by a major writer, he convinced me to read it a second time. Aside from his books on ceramics, he is also a respected contributor to another world, homoeroticism in photography and the fine arts. Ceramics is not a field that encourages strong literary support. You will then experience the true atmosphere of the Leach Pottery as you are guided through the original workshops and Bernard Leach’s Studio, with the opportunity to meet our Lead Potter, Roelof Uys. So, while it did not satisfy as a multicourse meal, Bernard Leach: Life and Work succeeds if treated as a smorgasbord, a rich assortment of bites, tastes, and textures. Can one of the most influential figures in studio pottery be the subject of a great biography, and can it find a wider audience than just the ceramics world? There are, in fact, slightly fewer than 1,500, but they are excessive and largely unrevealing. Leach would have benefited from a shorter treatment. Now that we have some distance from his life, it is becoming clear that Leach was our Don Quixote, a misguided moralist who created his own distorted realities about life and art based on an imaginary threat from a changing society. Nothing in Cooper’s book convinces us the opposite will be true.

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