Hideaki Miyamura
Hideaki Miyamura (born 1955) is a Japanese-born American potter based in New Hampshire. He is famous for his iridescent glazes, including a gold glaze, a “starry night” glaze on black, and a blue hare’s fur glaze.
He was born in Niigata, Japan, the son of an architect and civil engineer. He hoped to become a doctor, but the schooling was too expensive, so he moved to the United States and studied art history at Western Michigan University, where his interest in art grew.
After college, Miyamura trained as a potter in Japan. He spent more than five years apprenticing with master potter Shurei Miura in Yamanashi, testing tens of thousands of pieces and many formulas to create original glazes. He developed glazes he calls “yohen tenmoku,” drawing on a Chinese glazing tradition. Since then, he has conducted thousands more glaze tests.
Many of his glazes are inspired by the tenmoku style used in 12th–13th century Chinese tea bowls, especially those made for monasteries on Mount Tianmu in Zhejiang. Some observers also note influences from Scandinavian pottery.
Miyamura’s work is in the permanent collections of more than a dozen museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Newark Museum of Art, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. His pottery has been shown by Pucker Gallery in Boston, Gallery Camino Real in Florida, and Schaller Gallery in Michigan.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 17:33 (CET).