Tenmoku Glaze vase - Leach style.

I wonder if anyone can help me with this vase. It has a leach style to it but the neck is wrong. Not Mike Dodd (I asked him).

Can you take another photo of the mark and try to get the shadows across it. It look like it’s indented.

The base looks a bit odd on it. The form is like a bottle vase, and they generally tend to go straight down, rather than a narrow base like that.

Thanks I’ll try and get a better shot of the mark.

I’d just like to say I sent pictures of the vase to a potter asking if it was theirs or if they knew who it might be. They didn’t but they also remarked that if it had been by them they’re not sure they would admit it.
I found this unkind, to me anyone who takes a piece of clay and makes something with it is worthy of praise, the great Paulus Berensohn‘s pots where basic and simple but they where honest and true and filled with integrity.
Just because a potter isn’t a technical genius doesn’t make them a bad potter and I salute every single one of them from the person in their shed to the artist who’s work sells for £1000s.

I can probably guess who  Some potters are embarrassed by their early work, just as some writers are embarrassed by their early novels, and some artists by their paintings. It’s only human.
Seems to be a pastiche piece, inspired by Bernard Leach - there was something similar by Leach in a Woolley & Wallis auction a few years ago. Likely to be from the 70s or 80s

I can fully understand that feeling as an artist myself, (very amateurish and I dislike everything I’ve ever done) but I wouldn’t say that about something that wasn’t mine. I’ve redacted my post slightly.

Jeff Oestreich said this about the vase ‘This is definitely not a neck Bernard would put on. This wasn’t the slip cast clay that was used. After Bernard died and time passed Janet told Trevor to work in the style of Bernard. Also she told the workers to still make Bernard’s pots. She hired John Reece and later Byron Temple to move from the USA to St Ives to manage the pottery. One of them thought it was unethical to keep making his pots and complained to David Leach and they stopped it. Your vase was a spin off‘
So it may be an ex-Leach potter.

Jeff was really helpful and is back at Leach in October next year for a residency and exhibition so that should be worth a visit.

It is almost impossible to underestimate the influence of Bernard Leach on whole generations of post-war potters. His 1940's book A Potter's Handbook was the pottery bible for a huge number of student potters. So when one says 'Leach style' it includes a much larger number of potters than just those who worked at Leach ST Ives.
Pottery looks soooo easy when a professional does it. But that skill is one learnt over many years. Just as much as a professional artist or musician. So this a piece in the 'Leach style' with a potter still in the later learning stages. revealed by certain inadequacies in the form and design. There is no disrespect in that fact.
The potter who had a bust-up with Janet Leach , was Byron Temple, and it was over the Bernard Leach pot selling issue. But again, like most things it is more complicated. Bernard Leach was never the best thrower, and in his later years did not do much throwing. It was a common practice in the pottery for Bill Marshall to throw pots and Bernard Leach to decorate them. Which in the end is how many 'studios' have worked historically. Many of the most famous renaissance paintings were produced as cooperative studio efforts.

I’ve tried to get a better shot but it’s difficult - I’m not sure this helps.

Johners2000 wrote:
I’d just like to say I sent pictures of the vase to a potter asking if it was theirs or if they knew who it might be. They didn’t but they also remarked that if it had been by them they’re not sure they would admit it.
I found this unkind, to me anyone who takes a piece of clay and makes something with it is worthy of praise, the great Paulus Berensohn‘s pots where basic and simple but they where honest and true and filled with integrity.
Just because a potter isn’t a technical genius doesn’t make them a bad potter and I salute every single one of them from the person in their shed to the artist who’s work sells for £1000s.

Were the potters initials JM or PR?

Keep trying photographing the mark. You might get lucky. Malcolm Pepper??

Doubt if its Malcom Pepper. Has several and seen more, and the glaze and style does not like one he would use. Moreover. his marl was almost abstract.