The Leach Pottery. St Ives

Leach Pottery Yunomi

I spent a few days in St. Ives this week and was more impressed with the Leach Pottery than I imagined. It's my first visit since the days of Trevor Corser.

In town there is a ladies clothes shop called, Seasalt Cornwall. Not only do they sell functional ware from the pottery and display it, as shown below, but they have also sponsored some of the apprentices too.

In my opinion, the motif of this 12.2 cm DIA bowl has a distinctive style of the Japanese school of ceramics. A glazed Leach Pottery mark is impressed close to a foot rim (please see the attached pictures).

I could not find either a similar shape or decoration among pieces mentioned in the 'Leach Pottery - St. Ives' discussion on the Forum. Any suggestions relating to the attribution and date of creation of this bowl will be very much appreciated.

It would defintely have a Japanese influence. The whole ethos of the Bernard Leach was a British interpretation of Japanese ceramics. Bernard Leach spent his formative years as a potter in Japan. In 1920 he came back to England with a young Japanese potter- Shoji Hamada- who worked with Bernard Leach at St Ives for several years. Bernard Leach made many trips to Japan throughout his life, and there always was an immense cross-fertilisation between his pottery and Japan.
          Unfortunately as it just has the St Ives mark alone, it is very difficult to attribute it to any specific potter at the Leach pottery. During the later years the apprentices were sometimes allowed to do their own work, and there quite a few of them.
              There were Japanese potters who had periods at St Ives. Atsuya Hamada (Shoji's 3rd son) in 1957- 58, Shinsaku Hmada (Shoji's 2nd  son) in 1963, Tomoo Hmada (Shoji's grandson) in 1995. They did not use a mark.
                Equally of course, it could come from the modern 21st century incarnation of the St Ives pottery, who have done all sorts of things. They do have a Facebook site, you might get some ideas by posting it on there.

A pot with just the St Ives mark cannot be attributed to any one potter with any degree of accuracy unless you have a personal communication from one of them to say it’s their work. Although there are always chancers on the various auction sites who will claim the celadon pots with the oak leaf design or the Z bowls  are the work of Bernard Leach. But always take such claims with a pinch of salt and don’t be tempted to pay a premium.
The Leach Pottery page on FB is useful for their latest work but it’s not run by collectors and they don’t seem to have an inventory of marks, so sites like ours have far more experience of handling a wide range of vintage pieces than they do.

But it is a very nice St Ives piece whoever made it....Good pictires BTW.

It looks to me to be late 1960s and the decoration in my opinion looks weak design wise, despite the competent brushwork. Therefore I cannot believe it was done by anyone of note. My view is that it was done by an apprentice practising what he/she had seen Bernard do.

On the positive side. It is a relatively unusual piece of 60's/70's St Ives pottery that makes it more desirable than the normal more common standard ware.
There are a number of Bernard Leach short films on YouTube. Included is the one in this link, which gives a flavour of how the potter worked. Notice the amount of standard ware in the background!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-zNlehH5kg&list=PLYz8ma8lCmXhs-w2y6-f93bpnjyWC-u5q&index=2

Just to show what an odd world it is. Did you know that there is a Bar deigned by Bernard Leach in a hotel in Osaka?
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2016/06/03/food/leach-bar-inherits-spirit-japanese-folk-art/#.XOzk5XdFxjo

I've been told that these pieces were mostly made by Bernard and David Leach between 1949 and 1954 (when David left following the return of Janet Leach from Japan. Does anyone have any more information? Interestingly one of the smaller plates has decoration around the edge - which is very reminiscent of David Leach. Thank you.

These were part of the production range from just after the war circa 1946 until circa 19556. In those years the lead potters were Bernard Leach, David Leach, Michael Leach, and Bill Marshall. With various apprentices, but not so many as in the Janet Leach years. David was there circa 1946/47until 1956, with periods away in Norway and Aylesford. Michael Leach from 1950-55. Bill Marshall right through this period.Bernard Leach a good deal of the time, but he did make frequent trips abroad.
There is absolutely no way of telling which potter made an individual item, as they were produced as part of the craft collective. The 'Unkown Craftsman' that was part of Bernard's philosophy.

Thank you for the extra information. I know about the impossibility of ID'ing individual potters when it comes to production ware. The interesting thing (to me and it's just me being inquisitive) is the plate bottom right has 'extra' decoration in the dashes around the edge - this could be an embellishment by an individual potter who strayed away slightly from the 'standard' design. I have seen the same additional features only once before and that's on a plate in the Leach Museum. I doubt an apprentice would dare to stray away from the standard pattern so I wondered if (and it's just a guess) that these plates with the extra decoration are by David Leach. He used similar decoration on his personally marked Leach pieces - one which I have and attach an image. Just an idea though.

There is literally no way of telling. In 25 years of collecting studio pottery, I have never seen any production ware attributed to David Leach. I

I spent some time at Leach yesterday (my daughter is doing clay days there all summer) and I asked about the plates. A couple of people, including Jo Wason, told me that the oak leaf pottery was indeed thrown and glazed by most of the potters working there at the time but that only Bernard Leach decorated them. They would make a batch of plate etc and Bernard would come along and quickly draw an oak leaf on each one and then they would go off to be glazed.

I’ve seen a bowl at the Leach Museum, similar size, shape and glaze with a flower decoration.
Is this one with a bird uncommon. Was it a standard pattern? Can’t see a BL on it but .....

Pick up this lovely Leach Pottery small dish, been told it could be by John Reeve. Maybe it's by Leach himself, just wondering what date it is. I bought it for a £1 today.  At the time of purchase I could not read the seal, when I got home, out with the pencil and a bit of shading, behold the Leach mark .

Judging from the England stamp and the clay, I think it’s a relatively early Standard Ware piece, so 1945-55?

NaomiM wrote:Judging from the England stamp and the clay, I think it’s a relatively early Standard Ware piece, so 1945-55?

Thanks for dates NaomiM thought it was near this period somewhere, cheers.

The England mark probably dates it somewhat later, 1960's. The use of the England mark was specifically down to changes in Purchase Tax (the forerunner of VAT) to favour British made goods as opposed to Foreign imports. I have never seen it used on pre 1955 standard ware. Equally the lettering of the ENGLAND mark is exactly the same typeface as on most Leach standard ware that bears this mark.
John Reeve might well by a good bet. The collector who made that suggestion on Facebook is very knowledgeable. He was an apprentice at the Leach pottery 1959-61 and also worked in Devon for a couple of years afterwards. However, it could have been by one of the other apprentices, as they allowed a freer reign on their own work in the late 60's and 70's, and it is from this time that you see apprentice Leach work with personal marks.
Very nice piece tho.

philpot wrote:The England mark probably dates it somewhat later, 1960's. The use of the England mark was specifically down to changes in Purchase Tax (the forerunner of VAT) to favour British made goods as opposed to Foreign imports. I have never seen it used on pre 1955 standard ware. Equally the lettering of the ENGLAND mark is exactly the same typeface as on most Leach standard ware that bears this mark.
               John Reeve might well by a good bet. The collector who made that suggestion on Facebook is very knowledgeable. He was an apprentice at the Leach pottery 1959-61 and also worked in Devon for a couple of years afterwards. However, it could have been by one of the other apprentices, as they allowed a freer reign on their own work in the late 60's and 70's, and it is from this time that you see apprentice Leach work with personal marks.
         
Very nice piece tho.

Hi philpot! Thanks for the info and input, As we all know their were many students at the Leach pottery so it's very difficult to attribute this to one particular individual apprentice. I have Googled for the glaze pattern/design but no luck, mine you, I could be browsing for days when it come to Leach research, just need to see what pops up in the future regarding the design and potter, someone somewhere will always comes up with the goods and knowledge at some point in time.

Best

Ernest

In treality, I do not think you will ever know.Leach St Ives in the 60's was a vwery busy production pottery,with up to 8 potters at any one time. While a nice design, it is far from a unique style. Equally it is still Leach production standard ware.

philpot wrote:In treality, I do not think you will ever know.Leach St Ives in the 60's was a vwery busy production pottery,with up to 8 potters at any one time. While a nice design, it is far from a unique style. Equally it is still Leach production standard ware.

So true and thanks for the info and your input, and thanks to all members and their informative replies, cracking crew.

Bought these today one has a bottom to it but not convinced they match. Does anyone know if they had bottoms to them. Can they be attributed to a particular potter and timeline.

Many thanks

Intriguing, never seen anything like that before. It only has the St Ives mark, so it cannot be attributed to any single potter. It was a busy craft pottery with a basic 'crew' of up to 8 people. It is marked ENGLAND, which is characteristic of work produced mid 60's into the early 70's, when they were producing a lot of work.

Thank you they are quite crude and very heavy. Good mark though.