Koyama Kiyoko was born in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture in 1936. After the Second World War her family moved to Shiga Prefecture, eventually settling in the pottery village of Shigaraki. She entered the ceramic world at a young age, first assisting a ceramic painter, then working as a pottery decorator under Nakashima Takamitsu from 1954. She later studied Kenzan ware and sometsuke in Kyoto with Yoshitake Eijiro, before turning fully to clay at the age of twenty-seven under the guidance of Misawa Kenzo.
Deeply inspired by an ancient shard bearing a natural blue ash glaze, Koyama devoted herself to recreating this elusive surface through wood firing. Building her own kiln, she undertook countless long firings, persevering despite severe financial strain and entrenched gender discrimination in a field where women were traditionally excluded from wood kilns. Through persistence and experimentation, she ultimately achieved the distinctive blue glaze that defines her work.
Koyama has exhibited widely at major exhibitions including the Nihon Dento Kogei Ten, Nihon Togei Ten, and Asahi Togei Ten, as well as internationally. Her life and the loss of her son, Koyama Kenichi (1961–1992), are depicted in the film Hi-Bi (2005) and the NHK drama Scarlet. She is recognized as a pioneering figure in Japanese wood-fired ceramics and one of Shigaraki’s most important potters.
An EXHIBITION that also displayed her works "Kaika" Digital Catalog
