The unknown craftsman, mingei and Bernard Leach are ubiquitous terms in ceramics today. Their influence pervades our education system, journals, and folklore and yet very few people have any first hand knowledge of them. Instead they rely on word of mouth and romantic anecdotes which are then passed on in a slightly altered form each time to the next willing neophyte. This is the standard of the oral tradition which for thousands of years has been renowned for its creation of myths and legends.

Rather than be satisfied with these legendary and oft times conflicting oral accounts I decided to research the history of these ideas. What I found is that the mingei was a notion fabricated, post facto, in an effort to save the ailing Japanese craft industry from the impending perils of western industrialism. Yet mingei neither existed in Leach's time nor can it exist now. In order to show this we will examine the criteria of mingei in the work of Bernard Leach, one of it's most vocal advocates. Doing so will accomplish two things: first it will show that mingei is an anachronism. Secondly it will give us a more realistic picture of who Bernard Leach really was rather than the romanticized image that pervades our ceramic mythos. We will find that the glorious legend of Bernard Leach is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with the facts.

In his writing, Leach contends that the humble craftsman embracing the nobility of poverty could, by creating functional objects which were simple, unassuming and inexpensive, stave off the ravages of the materialism of industry and its insensibility to beauty.(1) His notion of the ethical pot, is defined by Oliver Watson as 'a pot, lovingly made in the correct way and with the correct attitude, would contain a spiritual and moral dimension.'.(2) This enduring image still inspires and sustains potters today. This philosophy is further revealed in the idea of mingei whose criteria are enumerated by Soetsu Yanagi.

"It must be made by an anonymous craftsman or woman and therefore unsigned; it must be functional, simple, and have no excess ornamentation; it must be one of many similar pieces and must be inexpensive; it must be unsophisticated; it must reflect the region it was made in; and it must be made by hand."(3)

With this definition in mind, we will examine each of these criteria in the work of Bernard Leach. First, the fact that he was at that time, and is today, world famous excludes him from the criteria of being an anonymous craftsman. Second, that the work be unsigned, was never even attempted by Leach. In fact, he put several stamps on his work at St. Ives. We know that Hamada signed his pots early on, yet later insisted that the 'work itself is the best signature', and ceased the practice. The neglected and most revealing fact, however, is the traditional practice of hako-gaki or 'box writing'. As Susan Peterson writes, it "is customarily practiced by all potters who sell their work expensively, whether or not the potter signs his pieces."(4) Hamada himself said that since the "the box lid authenticates the pot by Japanese tradition, so it is unnecessary to stamp the pot as well."(5) So, in spite of his rhetoric, Hamada too, effectively did sign his work.

Interestingly, Bernard Leach not only signed his work, he even signed the work that others made for him. Oliver Watson explains, that at St. Ives the chief thrower, William Marshall, made much of Leach's best work, which was finished up and then decorated(6) and of course, signed by Leach. Similarly in Japan, the Viscount appointed the best craftsmen to be at Leach's disposal. Maybe this is the 'Unknown Craftsman' he was referring to, it was unknown which craftsman made his work.

From his own accounts we know that Hamada sold his work expensively. Leach too, sold his work at prices comparable to the artists of the day. Watson does an accounting of Leach and Murray (whom Leach chastised as an 'art potter') and finds that Murray sold his work in "roughly the same price range as Bernard Leach . And more importantly, none of these wares was particularly cheap and they were certainly not for ordinary people.(7) In �the Potter's Art�, Garth Clark explains that in spite of his verbal acrobatics, "Leach was as much interested in making 'art' pots as Murray, except he called them 'personal pots'. His collectors were a small and elite group (many were the same collectors as Murray's ). And while his pottery did make standard functional wares, he personally had less and less to do with this activity."(8)

Leach spoke often about the value of repetition in the life of the potter as well as its value in the production of work. As author Edmund de Waal writes:

The endless repetition proscribed by Leach in a revealing image- 'think of the hours women have spent with knitting needles and in cooking good homemade food. In such they found leisure and satisfaction as well as work. Repetition for a hand potter is of a like nature' - was never his life. He never gained great technical facility in throwing, and never pretended that he had gained it. He never needed to make such a sacrifice of his time. Throughout his life at Abiko, and in Tokyo, in St. Ives and in the Japanese pottery villages, pots were thrown under his direction for him to decorate.(9)

According to the rhetoric of Yanagi and Leach, repetition and lack of ego produced the enduring masterpieces of the Sung dynasty. Yet Yanagi himself writes in the "The Unknown Craftsman" (a book adapted by Leach), "No famous painters of the day were hired to work for the kilns. The job was performed by boys around the age of ten, children of poor families, many of whom no doubt disliked the work and had to be forced by their parents to do it. ...it was not rare talent but... the endless repetition demanded of the children."(10) I believe today we refer to this as slavery, child slavery! Is this the 'ethical pot' we have heard so much about? Yanagi and Leach were aware that the Sung Dynasty craftsmen were no glorious 'artists/craftsmen'. They knew that they were slaves. It is ironic that while Leach attacked the 'industrial devils' of his generation whose factories alienated workers, he glorified the same practices employed in child sweat shops of the Sung dynasty.

We know Leach constantly sang the praises of utilitarian pottery. Yet we also know he made mostly show pieces and exhibition work. But most shocking is Leach's attitude toward "the woman who wrote to him complaining that a teapot he had made dribbled everywhere. In their book , "British Studio Ceramics", Rice/Gowing reveal that Leach responded with a mild sense of horror that she should be serving tea in it - a St Ives standard-ware teapot. .... He went on to explain the spiritual content of his pots and suggested that the piece be used as a sort of icon, to contemplate for inner peace."(11) This sounds more like a 1990's artist statement than the rhetoric of a functionalist.

As to the 'reflecting the area it was made', Leach is immediately disqualified as he was copying Sung ware. How he rationalized that brush work on copied Sung forms reflected the countryside of England is difficult to imagine. Perhaps he thought that briefly making some English slipware with the poor local materials qualifies all the work made in that studio, ad infinitum, as English. Or perhaps he rationalized that any country England had colonized somehow qualified it as within the domain of English heritage.

And finally, regarding the humble potter and the 'nobility of poverty', Leach was the furthest thing from it. He was born into an aristocratic family, his father was a colonial judge. He made numerous transoceanic trips before he was 21 years old at a time when there were few roads, the auto was in its infancy and the airplane wasn't even a consideration. He was self-sufficient only by means of his inheritance from his father, his many benefactors, and his wealthy collectors. For example, in 1920 when Leach moved to St. Ives to start a pottery business, it was financed by Mrs Frances Horne of the St. Ives Handicraft Guild. In the "Leach Legacy", Marion Whybrow writes that Horne "put up £2,500 which Leach matched with a similar sum over a period of time, enabling him to buy the property."(12) Later, in spite of this huge financial support, Leach was, as Oliver Watson writes, " steadily going bankrupt. He was only saved by his involvement with the Elmhirsts at Dartington Hall, .... Darlington invested some £3,000, a very considerable sum, for the modernization of the St. Ives Pottery. ... They also financed a trip to Japan for Bernard in 1935 and a course at Stoke-on-Trent for his son while he was away."(13)

In order to fully understand the significance of these sums of money let's try to put them into context. This can be a bit confusing because no one writer gives us all the information in one place. For example Watson writes, that "A skilled worker's wage might be around £5 per week; earnings Bernard aspired to in the early 1930's in his negotiations with Dartington Hall."(14) So, £3,000 is the equivalent of more than ten years salary. The size of these sums of money are often brushed over in the historic literature. Similarly, statements like, 'a trip to Japan' and 'a course at Stoke-on-Trent' need to be examined further. As Whybrow claims, this 'trip to Japan' was a two year trip for Bernard Leach and a friend . Dorothy Elmhirst "provided the money for Mark Tobey, an American painter, to go as travelling companion."(15) According to Rice/Gowing, a 'course' was really "two years at Stoke-on-the Trent"(16) for David. Dorothy Elmhirst, did not stop there, she also provided the "means for his research and working time to write the book."(17) Conservatively this totals to well over thirty years salary for Bernard Leach. (In today's standards, if you make $25,000 a year that would be over $750,000.)

All this grandiose rhetoric about the humble potter "coupling beauty with the nobility of poverty" was fine for everyone else but not for Bernard Leach. In reality, he was a wealthy, globe trotting aristocrat. If that were not contradiction enough, the real paradox is unearthed in Tanya Harrod's summary of "The Unknown Potter", "a gospel of humility and abnegation of self and its taste for Zen Buddhist aesthetics provided a frame work for craft activity which involved radical rejection of a whole set of Western values - particularly industrial capitalism."(18) The irreconcilable contradiction of Bernard Leach is that on one hand he rejects western industrial capitalism while at the same time he desperately needs them to survive. Between his elite customers, financing by wealthy industrialists (Elmhurst's were heir to the American Whitney fortune) and the education of David at the 'hands of the industrial devils' at Stoke-on-Trent, industrial capitalism is what kept him alive.

Finally, apologists of Leach claim that Yanagi proposed two kinds of Mingei. The 'jiriji-do' or the way of self -reliance and the 'tariki-do' or the way of reliance on others,'(19) We know Leach does not qualify as a 'tariki-do' so he must, as his proponents claim, be a jiriji-do. Yet claiming this distinction is disingenuous because there are no mingei 'tariki-do'. There weren't any then and there are none alive now. And yet that is the implied meaning when people use the term, mingei. While the definition of mingei - 'jiriji-do', is surprisingly, the individual artist, the genius, the 'man of capacity' who 'strikes out on his own driven by his inner search for personal expression.' This is the definition of the Individual Artist whom Leach fought so strongly against, and yet includes everyone working then, now and in fact Leach himself. Leach, Yanagi and Hamada were no mingei, they were wealthy, well connected, art school educated, famous artist/philosophers.

1. Leach, Bernard. "A Potter's Book", London: Faber and Faber, 1940, pg. 1.
2. Watson, Oliver. "Studio Pottery", Phaidon Press Limited, London, 1990, pg. 15.
3. Transcript of Yanagi's talk at the first International Conference of Potters and Weavers, Darlington Hall, Devon, England, 1952.
4. Peterson, Susan. "Shoji Hamada: a potter's way and work", Weatherhill, New York, 1974, pg 174.
5. Ceramics Monthly, February 1978 (excerpted form Hamada, potter.), pg. 61.
6. Watson, Oliver. "Studio Pottery", Phaidon Press Limited, London, 1990, pg. 24.
7. Ibid, p.23.
8. Clark, Garth. "The Potter's Art", Phaidon Press Limited, London, 1995, pg 150.
9. de Waal, Edmund. "Bernard Leach, St Ives Artist", Tate Gallery Publishing, Hong Kong, 1998, pg. 73.
10. Yanagi, Soetsu, (adapted by Bernard Leach). "The Unknown Craftsman", Kodansha International, New York, 1972. pg. 134.
11. Rice, Paul/ Gowing, Christopher. "British Studio Ceramics in the 20th Century", Chilton Book Co., Radnor, Pennsylvania,, 1989, pg. 25.
12. Whybrow, Marion. "The Leach Legacy, St. Ives Pottery and its Influence", Sansom and Company, Bristol, England, 1996, pg. 7.
13. Watson, Oliver. "Studio Pottery", Phaidon Press Limited, London, 1990, pg. 21.
14. Ibid, p. 23.
15. Marion Whybrow. "The Leach Legacy, St. Ives Pottery and its Influence", Sansom and Company, Bristol, England, 1996, pg. 19.
16. Rice, Paul/ Gowing, Christopher. "British Studio Ceramics in the 20th Century", Chilton Book Co., Radnor, Pennsylvania,, 1989, pg. 32.
17. Whybrow, Marion. "The Leach Legacy, St. Ives Pottery and its Influence", Sansom and Company, Bristol, England, 1996, pg.21.
18. Crafts Magazine, May/ June 1998, pg. 51.
19. Yanagi, Soetsu, (adapted by Bernard Leach). "The Unknown Craftsman", Kodansha International, New York, 1972. pg. 132.