Willoughby Gerrish in association with internationally renowned interior designer and architect Jonathan Reed will be presenting an exhibition of the work of ceramicist Janet Leach across two locations: Thorns Gallery, a breathtaking new destination in Raydale, North Yorkshire (5 July – 14 September), which will then tour to Willoughby Gerrish’s London gallery (5 – 19 December).
The name Leach is synonymous with pottery. The pioneering works of Janet Leach (1918-1997) have often been overshadowed by the reputation of her husband, Bernard (1887-1979) who, together with Shōji Hamada (1894-1978), established the Leach Pottery, St Ives in 1920. Leach Pottery is widely considered to have shaped the development of studio pottery in the United Kingdom. She was instrumental in the commercial and financial success of the pottery at St Ives following her marriage to Leach in 1956, at which point she took over its organisational and administrative management. Over the course of two decades Leach and a small team of assistants became responsible for the production of Leach standard-ware, which was first established by her husband and his son, David, during the 1930s. Her influence proved central to the continued development of the Leach Pottery and under her management the business was international in its reach, welcoming students, apprentices, and potters from around the world to train in the studio.
In their dynamic originality, organic sensuality of form, and eclectic range of influences Leach’s contribution to the field of pottery in the late twentieth century was formidable. In what was a male-dominated art world, she stands out as a fiercely independent female artist; she was a trailblazer whose work reflects her bold if sometimes contradictory character as well as the creative environment in which she learned her craft. Leach’s pieces are organic in form, imbued with a natural asymmetry, and borne from a playfulness and vitality learned from watching Hamada’s unconfined approach to his clay in the early years of her artistic creative development. Her work is evidence of the intimate relationship between process and artist, informed as hers also was by a congruence between mind, body, and material.
Underestimated and overlooked by some of her contemporaries, Leach was a talented ceramicist in her own right. Her skill lay not only in her sensitivity to her chosen material but also in her technical ability and individual creative style. Leach’s career took a decisive turn when she became the first non-native woman to study pottery in Japan under the mentorship of Hamada, which was no small undertaking in a society where women did not typically train as potters. Having first met Hamada whilst attending a course in 1952 at Black Mountain College, Colorado, she subsequently enjoyed two years training under him in the small town of Mashiko just north of Tokyo. Leach’s experiences in Japan had a profound effect on her work, shaped as they were by a range of philosophical approaches and new techniques that encouraged her to experiment with materials, methods, texture, and finish. Through her use of colour and texture there is an inherent physicality in all of her pieces, and which revolve around shades of mood and intensity that are variously encompassed by contrasting qualities of motion and stillness, the refined and the rugged, stability and fragility.