Hong Kong – born Bernard Howell Leach (1887 – 1979) has been described as the ‘Father of British studio pottery’.

Working in the Far East until 1920, Leach moved to St. Ives in 1920 at the invitation of Frances Horne who was establishing a Guild of Handicrafts. 

Leach became the group’s resident potter establishing a studio, the ‘Leach Pottery’ on the outskirts of the town where the first traditional Japanese climbing kiln built outside of the Far East was completed in 1923.  Leach’s pottery combined Western and Eastern art and philosophy and he concentrated on using traditional British and German techniques with traditional Korean, Japanese and Chinese decoration. 

He preferred making simple and functional pots rather than what he termed ‘fine art’ pots. Leach mentored many apprentice potters in St. Ives, including Michael Cardew, Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie and Janet Darnell who went on to worldwide fame and many of those artists have inspired and trained later generations including one of the most celebrated porcelain ceramicists of modern times, Edmund de Waal.