Janet Leach

Janet Leach was an American ceramic artist, born in Texas in 1918. She attended BMC in 1952 during a ten-day session on pottery, where she encountered her future husband, Bernard Leach (1955). Ceramicists Shoji Hamada and Dr. Soetsu Yanagi, among other artists also attended the college at this time. Hamada, impressed with her skill, invited her to work at his Mashiko Pottery in Japan. Through this experience, the artist became one of the first women to study in Japan in the mid-1900s. Keeping to minimal glazes and forms, Leach’s work found ways to combine styles of European, American, and Japanese ceramics. Her work has been displayed at Tate St Ives and Tate London. She died in 1997.