Bottle with Foxglove | David Leach
David Leach: Industrial Devils & Standard Ware
Cube Gallery, 12 September to 10 January
Leach Pottery presents an exhibition which charts the development of Leach Pottery Standard Ware from the late 1930s, a time when David Leach first established his influence on the Pottery’s creative and commercial direction, alongside examples of David’s own work.
David Leach OBE, 1911-2005, was the eldest of Bernard Leach’s five children. An internationally recognised potter who played a significant role in the development of the Leach Pottery, David was an active educationalist who worked to support the Craft Potters Association and Devon Guild of Craftsmen. From the early 1930s Bernard Leach was largely absent from the Pottery and David, keen to modernise production methods and improve the Pottery’s commercial outlook, took a three year Pottery Managers’ Course in Stoke-on-Trent, a place Bernard considered the home of the ‘industrial devil’: a ‘commercial scientific graveyard’ (Emmanuel Cooper 2003).
On David’s return from Stoke, the production of earthenware was ceased, the three-chamber kiln was converted from wood to oil firing, the Pottery was extended to include mechanical equipment, and the workforce organised to ensure a steady supply of local labour with the introduction of an apprenticeship system, of which William Marshall was the first. Such developments provided the backbone for the design and production of Leach Pottery Standard Ware in around 1939. A contemporary interpretation of domestic tableware made in stoneware, Standard Ware was made available through successive catalogues and its success greatly increased production and set the Pottery on a sound financial footing in a post-War environment it was well positioned to exploit.
In 1955 David went on to establish the Lowerdown Pottery in Bovey Tracey where, for the first five years, he returned to earthenware production. David returned to making domestic and individual pots, in both stoneware and porcelain, from the 1960s onwards. Ever productive, he continued working at Lowerdown into his 90s.
This exhibition presents a visual overview of Standard Ware production alongside a fine selection of pots which illustrate its development, as well as David’s production of domestic ware and personal work at the Lowerdown Pottery. Included are examples of domestic earthenware and stoneware, alongside David’s fine personal vision of timeless stoneware and porcelain pots.