Emmanuel Cooper - Connections & Contrasts

Dr Emmanuel Cooper OBE, 1938-2012, was a distinguished craftsperson, curator, writer, teacher and broadcaster. His pots are represented in numerous public and private collections, both in the UK and overseas. He authored nearly thirty books and was the founder and editor of one of the world’s leading craft magazines, Ceramic Review. For over a decade, Emmanuel Cooper was visiting Professor of Ceramics and Glass at London’s Royal College of Art, and a regular broadcaster on television and radio. He was appointed OBE for his services to art in 2002.

His skills, first honed through the production of repeat domestic tableware at his London workshops, were increasingly expressed in the more nuanced making of individual artistic pieces. His glazes, surfaces, and forms, speak of the urban environment, from deeply textured detail to soft vibrant colours often accentuated with the addition of subtle gold highlights.

Emmanuel Cooper’s books include acclaimed biographies of Bernard Leach, Lucie Rie, David Leach, and Janet Leach. He also wrote on the history of pottery, and contemporary ceramics, and published a series of technical books on glaze practice that have become the go-to manuals of many workshops and studios. His contribution to ceramics was hugely significant, both to makers on a personal level and to the wider public-standing of the genre. Interest in his work has increased significantly over the past three years.

The Exhibition

Between June and September 2015, we will present a major exhibition of Emmanuel Cooper’s ceramics in our Cube Gallery. It will be a fitting recognition of Emmanual’s place in the story of studio ceramics and a timely return to the gallery where he curated the first exhibition that marked the re-opening of the Leach Pottery, as a musuem, in 2008.

Emmanuel Cooper: Connections & Contrasts will examine his work and career in the context of Leach, especially his relationship to Bernard Leach which began with a speculative letter from Emmanuel, in 1967, and turned full-circle, in 2003, with the publicaiton of Emmanuel’s detailed biography of Bernard. Indeed, Emmanuel became the chronicler of the wider Leach family of potters with books on both David and Janet, making him a central figure in the recent Leach story.

A further connection can be found in the philosophical influence of Bernard’s A Potter’s Book, which guided Emmanuel’s early practice and production towards making domestic pots in the urban environment of London. There were many contrasts too, as shown, for example, by the way that Emmanuel side-stepped overtly making in the Leach 'tradition'. Emmanuel favoured a more metropolitan and Scandinavian aesthetic led by experimentation with glazes and surface decoration, ultimately resulting in the production of his trademark surfaces and glazes, sometimes textured, often colourful, but always reflecting the intensity and contrasts of the urban environment.