John Leach was a studio potter, the eldest son of David Leach and the eldest grandson of

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 ...

. Born in St Ives in 1939, he studied under his grandfather and father at St Ives and under

Ray Finch Raymond Finch (born 2 June 1963) is a British politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England between 2014 and 2019. The fourth named candidate on the UK Independence Party (UKIP) list for the South Ea ...

at Winchcombe. Leach left school in 1957 and worked with his father at Lowerdown Pottery

Bovey Tracey Bovey Tracey () is a small town and civil parish in Devon, England, on the edge of Dartmoor, its proximity to which gives rise to the "slogan" used on the town's boundary signs, "The Gateway to the Moor". It is often known locally as "Bovey". ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

and from 1961 to 1962 he was an apprentice 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-sto ...

St Ives.

He founded Muchelney Pottery on the

Somerset Levels The Somerset Levels are a coastal plain and wetland area of Somerset, England, running south from the Mendips to the Blackdown Hills. The Somerset Levels have an area of about and are bisected by the Polden Hills; the areas to the south a ...

in 1964, and developed a range of pottery using local clay and wood to fuel the kiln. The

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

in London holds a collection of his work and also the

Worcester Art Museum The Worcester Art Museum, also known by its acronym WAM, houses over 38,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present day and representing cultures from all over the world. WAM opened in 1898 in Worcester, Massachusetts, and ranks among th ...

USA. His work is also in the permanent collections of the

Fitzwilliam Museum The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard FitzWilliam, 7th Vis ...

, the

Ulster Museum The Ulster Museum, located in the Botanic Gardens in Belfast, has around 8,000 square metres (90,000 sq. ft.) of public display space, featuring material from the collections of fine art and applied art, archaeology, ethnography, treasure ...

, Belfast, the

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 ...

and the National Museum of Wales. He died 29 August 2021. His funeral was held on 1 October 2021 at Higher Ground Meadow near Corscombe.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leach, John 1939 births 2021 deaths English potters 20th-century ceramists People from St Ives, Cornwall