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[September 2006]
Janet Leach - A Potter's Life
Ceramic Review Publishing (London, England) has announced the publication of a monograph on the life and work of the distinguished potter Janet Leach (1919-1997) by Emmanuel Cooper, issued to coincide with the first retrospective of her work at Tate St Ives.
The work of Janet Leach - one of the key potters of the 20th century - brings together a diverse range of influences ranging from early American pottery, traditional Japanese and Korean pots and studio ceramics. Born in the USA, she married Bernard Leach in 1956 and lived and worked in St Ives until her death in 1997.
Emmanuel Cooper traces the development of her ideas from the early, more formal pots to the later, freely thrown bottles, many of which bear the marks and scarring of the wood fire.
Acknowledged as an inventive and spirited potter, Janet Leach was fiercely independent; with a sculptor's eye for form, she developed a unique style that merged Eastern and Western influences. Although she spent most of her working life at the Leach Pottery, Bernard Leach commented that her pots showed no direct influence from his own. With some 200 images from her earliest pots in Japan to her latest wares, the book confirms Janet Leach's status as a gifted and original potter.
The book, due for publication on 1 October 2006, will be a 160-page sewn-bound paperback and will be priced (UK) at £14.95.
ENDS