I love vintage pottery films so it was a pleasure to discover some newly digitized films that have been put online recently. These show famous Mingei potters Shoji Hamada and Bernard Leach at work.
The Art of the Potter is a 51 minute film from 1970. It was filmed by Sydney Reichman, produced by David Outerbridge, and was posted by Marty Gross on Vimeo.
A Visit to the Leach Pottery, 1973 is a recently digitized film that was shot by Kim Schuefftan and Toshio Sekiji, and includes John Bedding in Conversation with Marty Gross. It was posted by Marty Gross on Vimeo.
View more videos like this by clicking on Marty Gross’s Vimeo page here. Learn more about the Mingei Film Archive Project by clicking here.
If you’d like to learn more about the Japanese folk art movement known as Mingei , there are quite a few museum and exhibition catalogs, but a great place to start is with The Unknown Craftsman by Soetsu Yanagi with a forward by Bernard Leach. First translated into English in 1972, it is an enduring text on the handmade, the meaning of craft arts, and the power of beauty.
Shop The Unknown Craftsman at Amazon
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