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The Leach Pottery, Bernard Leach (St Ives) Trust Ltd
By 2005 the pottery had fallen into a very poor state of repair and was facing closure and redevelopment. Under the banner of the Leach Restoration Project, a rescue bid was launched, the site was purchased by the local authority and a £1.7 million re-building project commenced.
The Leach Pottery aims to provide a focus for the future of studio pottery in the UK, setting standards and providing a practical, high quality training ground for potters at any stage of their career. These opportunities range from schools’ education and work experience to incubation units, master classes and international artist residencies and will soon include graduate and post-graduate level training, traditional apprenticeships, summer schools and research studies. Total project cost: £1.7 million, funded by Heritage Lottery Fund, Arts Council England SW, Penwith District Council, Regional Development Funding, Public Appeals in the UK and Japan, trusts and foundations. Design Team: GHK Architects. Some of your comments: Not only a fine restoration of the pottery and a fascinating insight into the work of Leach and his fellow-potters, but a living pottery in which potters still work, keeping the Leach tradition alive in this century and adding more to it. As a Japanese I think that our traditional craft needs to be shown to many different people outside Japan. And the Leach Pottery is the best possible missionary. The Art Fund Prize 2010 would enable The Leach Pottery to become a centre of excellence and excite visitors and its worldwide audience to discover, in the words of Bernard Leach "the unfamiliar common groundwork of humanity in search of truth and beauty, and a growing vision of a future unity of mankind". Bernard Leach was virtually the founder of studio pottery in England. His influence and philosophy have been worldwide and it is important that his workshop and his pots be preserved well - not just for Cornwall but for the many ceramicists from all over the world who visit St. Ives. The intimacy and domestic setting of the museum in St. Ives is a perfect foil for the cross-cultural refinements of his work which, while presenting itself as sculpturally discrete, nevertheless resonates with the domestic intent of the medium, thus drawing together so many threads of the art, the artist and purposefulness by which the work was generated. The understated buildings, especially the courtyard all draw out the reflective contemplative nature of the observer, enabling him to appreciate the beauty of the work. And when one realises this is Cornwall, not Japan, the subtle blend of east and west that distinguished his life becomes all the more poignant and legible. As a potter, the Leach pottery is a place of pilgrimage, in a way - a place to see where the birth of the studio pottery movement started in Britain. However, the pottery itself is more than just a museum - a recorder of a time and place. It is a living, breathing pottery that I think is trying to live up to the ideals of Bernard Leach, and that kind of makes it unusual amongst museums and galleries. The Leach Pottery should win because if it wasn't for the chance meeting of Bernard Leach meeting and Shoji Hamada at the end of the Industrial Revolution then people wouldn't have discovered Ceramics as an Art Form. Wayne Higby or Pete Volkos would not become the Icons of Ceramic Arts and people like my husband would not have jobs teaching Ceramics as faculty in University Art Departments throughout the world. The entire Leach Family from Bernard Leach to his son David Leach and David's son's.... the Legacy goes on. Great combination of display space and working pottery. It is just as important as the others except it provides a small town with something exceptional and it’s a piece of history that until recently was nearly lost. It’s an important part of the art history of St. Ives, and brings great pleasure to the locals and holidaymakers alike. The Leach Pottery was one of the first Studio Pottery workshops in the Western world. Most potters were strongly influenced by Bernard Leach's writings during the 1950's through to the 1970's and several even travelled from New Zealand to work at St. Ives. These potters have passed on the techniques and knowledge they acquired there to fellow potters who were not fortunate enough to be able to work with Bernard at St. Ives. The restoration work done at the Leach Pottery needs support to be able to continue with the educational programmes they have undertaken.
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The Leach Pottery, founded in 1920 by Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada, forged the shape of studio pottery production for decades and set the standards for the sector. Scores of potters, artists, students and apprentices trained here, attracted from all across the world and creating an unusual mix of the very local and the completely global.
The old pottery reopened to the public in 2008 and the new studios were completed in February 2009, providing workspace for a new generation of potters and a living legacy to Bernard Leach's life and work. The site now includes his historic workshops and kiln, dedicated museum space, a working studio where the new Leach tableware is produced and a gallery holding regular contemporary exhibitions. The old pottery workshop has been sensitively preserved and the famous Japanese climbing kiln, the first of its kind to be built in the west, is now a scheduled monument.
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