100 years of the Leach Pottery? This is quite an anniversary to mark, for without Bernard Leach’s workshop, established in 1920 with the help of his friend Shoji Hamada, studio pottery in this country, and indeed the world, might look very different. Just think of what Leach brought to ceramics, notably an emphasis on useful pottery, and an integrated style sourced from pre-industrial England and the traditions of the Far East, but most significantly (for the many people that never embraced his particular aesthetic) the notion that pottery could be an important and viable way of life.
"As far back as one goes in time, the works of humanity from prehistoric times have reached us not through stone which crumbles and wears away, or through metal which oxidizes and becomes like powder, but through slabs of pottery, the writing on which is as clear today as it was under the stiletto of the scribe who traced it." (Bernard Leach, A Potter's Book)
