Yixing teapot artist Bao Yumei

13 май 2026 г.

Yixing teapot artist Bao Yumei 鲍玉梅

Jiangsu Province Ceramic Art Master (Third Session, 2023)
Senior Craft Artist
Senior Rural Revitalization Craft Artist
Member, China Ceramic Industry Association
Member, Jiangsu Ceramic Art Committee
Member, Jiangsu Arts and Crafts Society
Representative Inheritor of Wuxi Intangible Cultural Heritage Project

Born in 1968 into a family of potters in Dingshu, Yixing, Bao Yumei began her apprenticeship in teapot making at the Yixing Fangyuan Purple Clay Craft Factory (Factory No. 1) in 1984. Through diligence, intelligence, and a perceptive artistic sensitivity, she steadily built a strong foundation, and in 1990 she was selected to join the factory’s Research Institute.

In 1992, the factory sent her to the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts (now part of Tsinghua University) to study Ceramic Form Design. There she systematically studied sketching, ceramic modeling, fundamentals of ceramic form, ceramic form composition, traditional decoration, and ceramic design theory, receiving hands-on guidance from professors Zhang Shouzhi, Wang Jianzhong, Li Zheng’an and others. She completed the program with outstanding results.

In 2010, Bao collaborated with He Jiaying — now Vice Chairman of the China Artists Association, Honorary President of the Tianjin Painting Academy, and Honorary Director of the Tianjin Art Museum — who personally carved calligraphy and paintings onto the works. In 2011 and again in 2015, she partnered with the celebrated artist Han Meilin to design and produce the Heavenly Script Teapot series. In 2015, she attended the Advanced Seminar on Humanities and Ceramic Art at Tsinghua University’s School of Continuing Education, passed the examinations with high marks, and was honored as an outstanding participant.

Also in 2015, she took part in Milan Expo cultural exchange events, giving live demonstrations of purple clay craftsmanship. She has been invited to Taiwan, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates for zisha (purple clay) exchange activities. Her works have won numerous gold, silver, and bronze awards in national competitions; her papers have appeared in national and provincial professional journals; and many of her pieces are held in national and provincial museum collections.

In September 2014, Hebei Fine Arts Publishing House released Bao Yumei’s Collection of Purple Clay Works (published under the variant name 鲍玉美), authored by Bao Yumei. In December 2017, the same publisher issued Reading Teapots, Shaping Sand: A Study of Traditional Purple Clay Vessels, also authored by her.

With more than three decades of dedication to purple clay teapot making, Bao Yumei has relied on solid fundamentals and a tireless, inquisitive spirit to create a large body of outstanding work and develop her own distinctive style. Her pieces are succinct yet generous in form, refined, graceful, and poised — earning her recognition among collectors as a master potter of true skill and substance.

Selected Works