Day One: Notes from Japan

Director of the Crafts Study Centre, Simon Olding, travelled to Japan on 27th February 2019 for a research trip supported by an ICOM UK British Council Travel Grant. He will be exploring, along with Koichiro Isaka, the Director of the St Ives Ceramics Gallery in Tokyo, the possibility of an exhibition of mainly two-dimensional work relating to the Potter Bernard Leach. He will visit museums and private collections in Tokyo, Kawasaki, Kurashiki and Kyoto in the hope an exhibition can be planned in 2020, the centenary year of the founding of the Leach Pottery by Leach and Shoji Hamada in St Ives. Over the course of the week, you’ll be able to read about Simon’s trip on our special blog feature.

Bernard Leach made an etching in 1918 with the subject In a Toyko Park. It shows a Western dressed man sheltering under windswept trees. It is rather a cursory work. But I thought of it on this afternoon whilst walking through Ueno Park, which Leach certainly visited, as a good starting point for my Japan research trip....

17th Century Shrine, Ueno Park, Japan.

Walking in Leach's estimable footsteps... Went on to brief Manami Yuasa, Head of Arts, British Council, on my schedule and very interested to learn about British/Japanese cultural plans for 2020. A propitious year for culture and Sport. The Japan Olympics and the centenary of the founding of The Leach Pottery in St Ives. 

From the Peony Gardens at Ueno Park, Japan.