Studio pottery: Shoji Hamada and the Leach Pottery

Hamada's connection with English studio pottery is through Bernard Leach who established a studio in St Ives, Cornwall in the early 1920s. Leach had been born in Hong Kong and was brought up partly in Japan before going to England to be educated. After studying art at the Slade School in London he returned to Japan in 1909 to make his life as an artist. He learnt Japanese techniques especially the art of 'raku' and the use of subdued tonality. When he returned to England to set up his studio he was fortunate in having as a technical assistant Shoji Hamada. Hamada spent three years with Leach before leaving for the pottery village of Mashiko which remained his home until his death in 1973. 
Whilst at St Ives, Hamada used the techniques of sgraffito, slip trailing and inlaid slips. His eastern heritage informed his used of simple and pure forms. 

Sgrafitto is a form of decoration made by scratching through a surface to reveal a lower layer of a contrasting colour

Stoneware glazed and sgraffito decorated vase, circa 1920-1923

 

 

Slip trailing is the application to a clay surface of lines of slip using a fine-pointed dispenser.

St Ives, 1920-23

 

Inlay is to force different colored clays or slips into clay of another color. Clay can be pressed in and slips added to fill up spaces.

Teabowl, stoneware, ash glaze with inlaid and iron painted decoration. Autumn, 1944

 

Hamada also worked at the Leach Pottery between 1929 and 1930 but, it should be noted, he rarely marked his work so opportunities exist for discoveries. On the occasions when his work was marked the backstamp included the Leach Pottery mark with his Japanese signature. Known Hamada pots from this era rarely come up for sale and will fetch in the thousands rather than the hundreds. He is considered by some to be the finest potter of the twentieth century.

Hamada signature and Leach Pottery backstamp