Janet Darnell Leach (15 March 1918 – 12 September 1997), was an American

studio potter Studio pottery is pottery made by professional and amateur artists or artisans working alone or in small groups, making unique items or short runs. Typically, all stages of manufacture are carried out by the artists themselves.Emmanuel Cooper, ...

working in later life at the

Leach Pottery The Leach Pottery was founded in 1920 by Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada in St Ives, Cornwall, in the United Kingdom. The buildings grew from an old cow / tin-ore shed in the 19th century to a pottery in the 1920s with the addition of a two-stor ...

in St Ives,

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

in England. After studying pottery at Black Mountain, North Carolina under

Shoji Hamada A is a door, window or room divider used in traditional Japanese architecture, consisting of translucent (or transparent) sheets on a lattice frame. Where light transmission is not needed, the similar but opaque ''fusuma'' is used (oshiire ...

, a visiting artisan, she traveled to Japan to work with him. She studied with him for two years and always considered him to be her principal mentor. She was the first foreign woman to study pottery in Japan and only the second westerner. After returning to the US from Japan, in 1955 she married

Bernard Leach Bernard Howell Leach (5 January 1887 – 6 May 1979), was a British studio potter and art teacher. He is regarded as the "Father of British studio pottery". Biography Early years (Japan) Leach was born in Hong Kong. His mother Eleanor (née ...

, the noted British studio potter, whom she had earlier studied with. They returned to Great Britain to operate his studio at St. Ives. Janet Leach continued to be influenced by Japanese aesthetics in her pottery and ceramics, and her work has increased in popularity. In 2006-2007 there was a major retrospective of her work at

Tate St Ives Tate St Ives is an art gallery in St Ives, Cornwall, England, exhibiting work by modern British artists with links to the St Ives area. The Tate also took over management of another museum in the town, the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture ...

Life

Janet Darnell was born in

Grand Saline, Texas Grand Saline is a city in Van Zandt County, Texas, United States, located in East Texas. The population was 3,136 as of 2010. Grand Saline is the third largest city in Van Zandt County and is located roughly 75 miles (120 km) east of Dallas an ...

, United States, in 1918.''Obituary: Janet Leach'', Emmanuel Cooper, Friday 12 September 1997 at independent.co.uk
Retrieved 23 December 2016 Her early years involved moving to New York to work with sculptor Robert M. Cronbach and becoming involved with the Federal Works Art Project. She was briefly married during the Second World War and worked as a welder in a shipyard on

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull an ...

. Eventually she started to work with clay and learned to use a potter's wheel. In 1948 she set up a pottery in a Steiner community in Spring Valley. She taught pottery at a mental health hospital in New York. After meeting

and

Black Mountain College Black Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey's educational ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

, she gained Hamada's agreement to work with him at Mashiko after he had returned to Japan. She travelled there in 1954, by cargo boat. Darnell spent a great deal of time with Bernard Leach and eventually they agreed to marry, initially intending to live in Japan. However, with Bernard's son David Leach leaving the

to establish his own studio, they returned to England in 1956. Janet Leach's independent spirit ensured that her work was quite different from much of the Leach style. She never felt the need to pay reverence to her husband's work, and could be openly critical of it. In return her own work was not always valued within the St Ives Studio; much of it lay hidden for many years. Clearly influenced by the oriental style and form, her work is free flowing and energetic. There was a retrospective exhibition of her work in 2006–7 at

References

External links

Article by Joanna Wason about Janet Leach
Studio Pottery

Aberystwyth University Ceramics Collection

* [http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/collections_list.cfm/fuseaction/Collections.ViewCollection/CollectionID/5584 Letters from Bernard & Janet Leach to Warren MacKenzie, includes draft article by Janet Leach], Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

Examples of work

* Janet Leach Pots in V&A Collection, London
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Leach, Janet 1918 births 1997 deaths 20th-century American women artists St Ives artists People from Grand Saline, Texas American potters Women potters 20th-century ceramists American ceramists American women ceramists American expatriates in England

Life

References

Further reading

External links

Examples of work