A Potter's Book

Description

It deals with four types of pottery: Japanese raku, English slipware, stoneware and oriental porcelain. With this book, potters can learn everything from how to adapt recipes for pigments and glazes to designing kilns to their local conditions. Primarily intended for practical craftsmen and students, it also appeals to lovers of ceramics and those with an interest in cultural interchange between East and West.

Bernard Howell Leach (1887 - 1979) was a British studio potter and art teacher. He was born in Hong Kong and spent a long time living and potting in Japan, where he learnt the raku style of pottery. On his return to England, he founded the Leach Pottery in St Ives, and went on to teach some of the most celebrated ceramicists of the 20th century.

"With his writings as well as with his ceramics, Leach played a major role in elevating the status of the European potter from craftsman to artist, thereby paving the way for the twentieth-century studio pottery movement." * New York Times * "This updated edition of the classic by Leach (British potter and teacher) belongs on every ceramist's bookshelf. Minor text changes, a look at Leach's impact on the West, and numerous color photographs make this an even more valuable resource than the 1940 original. Highly recommended." * Choice * "This fine new edition of A Potter's Book, first published in 1940, shows representative images of his work (and sometimes his son David's) alongside Japanese or Korean wares made from similar bodies or using similar glazes. It is always easy to spot the Leach." * Times Literary Supplement * "This edition, published 75 years after the first edition in 1940, remains faithful to Leach's text, while also including color versions of the original images (where available), color images of his pots, and additional images to clarify various points. A preface by Leach's grandson, Philip Leach, updates the family's story and frames the important role this book has played in countless potters' lives." * Ceramic Arts * "Despite the idiosyncrasy of Leach's East-meets-West output and ideas, he expressed these so often and with such solemn conviction in numerous books, talks and tours that by the 1950s they had become doctrine. A Potter's Book (1940) had the greatest impact: even today, its mixture of poetry, philosophy and practical instruction earns it the soubriquet 'the potter's bible'." * Apollo *