T H E L E A C H P O T T E R Y
Wheel-thrown ceramics made for everyday use by the Leach Pottery's international team of production potters, volunteers and apprentices. Each piece is wheel-thrown using stoneware clay from Doble's claypit in St Agnes, Cornwall - much the same clay as was used in the original Leach Standard Ware production - and stamped on the base with the Leach Pottery stamp.
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Founded in 1920 by Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada, the Leach Pottery, St Ives, is among the most respected and influential potteries in the world. Funded by the Guild of Handicraft and founded on teachings from Japan, Leach and Hamada wanted to challenge the homogeneity of British mass production and position ceramic practice as an equal to the fine arts. Not only did the potters construct the first Japanese-style climbing kiln in the West, their subsequent influence on studio pottery and the philosophy of ceramics became internationally renowned.
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Over the last hundred years The Leach Pottery has forged the shape of Studio Pottery in the UK and beyond. Scores of potters, students and apprentices, from across the world have come to the Leach Pottery to train, maintaining the Pottery's creative principle of East/West exchange. Today, the Leach Pottery Studio, Museum and Gallery continue developing Bernard Leach's historic legacy.
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The studio is currently run by Lead Potter Roelof Uys:
‘It was a great honour to be offered the roll of Lead Potter here at the Leach. I hope to continue working in a tradition that has influenced and inspired so many artists from all over the world. I am always mindful that I stand on the shoulders of giants.’
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THROWN is proud to represent their standard ware range as well as individual work by members of their current studio team:
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