ROB BARNARD

“I am absorbed in exploring that space between predictable beauty and its opposite, the unaesthetic or homely.”

-Rob Barnard, 2019

Bernard Leach, in his seminal work, A Potter’s Book, introduced Japanese  pottery to the West as an artform in its own right and inspired potters from around the world to travel to Japan to study. Perhaps, the most important American potter to emerge from that “baby boom” generation who traveled to Japan is Rob Barnard. Barnard went to Japan 1974 full of the romanticism that Leach wrote about but, instead, found a deeper more profound experience. His teacher and mentor was the late Kazuo Yagi who has often been described as the “father of modern Japanese ceramics.” It was Yagi who challenged Barnard to pursue the conceptual, emotional, and spiritual side of pottery.