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was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. In his time he was Japan's leading expert on Chinese painting. Born in Edo (now Tokyo), Hokusai is best-known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (c. 1831) which includes the iconic and internationally recognized print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, created during the 1820s. Hokusai created the "Thirty-Six Views" both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal obsession with Mount Fuji. It was this series, specifically The Great Wave print and Fuji in Clear Weather, that secured Hokusai’s fame both within Japan and overseas. As historian Richard Lane concludes, “Indeed, if there is one work that made Hokusai's name, both in Japan and abroad, it must be this monumental print-series...” . While Hokusai's work prior to this series is certainly important, it was not until this series that he gained broad recognition and left a lasting impact on the art world. It was The Great Wave print that initially received, and continues to receive, acclaim and popularity in the Western world.

Early life and artistic training

Hokusai was born on the 23rd day of 9th month of the 10th year of the Hōreki period (October or November 1760) to an artisan family, in the Katsushika district of Edo, Japan. His childhood name was Tokitarō. It is believed his father was the mirror-maker Nakajima Ise, who produced mirrors for the shogun. His father never made Hokusai an heir, so it's possible that his mother was a concubine. Hokusai began painting around the age of six, possibly learning the art from his father, whose work on mirrors also included the painting of designs around the mirrors.

Hokusai was known by at least 30 names during his lifetime. Although the use of multiple names was a common practice of Japanese artists of the time, the numbers of names he used far exceeds that of any other major Japanese artist. Hokusai's name changes are so frequent, and so often related to changes in his artistic production and style, that they are useful for breaking his life up into periods.

At the age of 12, he was sent by his father to work in a bookshop and lending library, a popular type of institution in Japanese cities, where reading books made from wood-cut blocks was a popular entertainment of the middle and upper classes. At 14, he became an apprentice to a wood-carver, where he worked until the age of 18, whereupon he was accepted into the studio of Katsukawa Shunshō. Shunshō was an artist of ukiyo-e, a style of wood block prints and paintings that Hokusai would master, and head of the so-called Katsukawa school. Ukiyo-e, as practiced by artists like Shunshō, focused on images of the courtesans and Kabuki actors who were popular in Japan's cities at the time.

After a year, Hokusai's name changed for the first time, when he was dubbed Shunrō by his master. It was under this name that he published his first prints, a series of pictures of Kabuki actors published in 1779. During the decade he worked in Shunshō's studio, Hokusai was married to his first wife, about whom very little is known except that she died in the early 1790s. He would marry again in 1797, although this second wife also died after a short time. He fathered two sons and three daughters with these two wives, and his youngest daughter Oyei eventually became an artist like her father.

Upon the death of Shunshō in 1793, Hokusai began exploring other styles of art, including European styles he was exposed to through French and Dutch copper engravings he was able to acquire. He was soon expelled from the Katsukawa school by Shunkō, the chief disciple of Shunshō, possibly due to studies at the rival Kanō school. This event was, in his own words, inspirational: "What really motivated the development of my artistic style was the embarrassment I suffered at Shunkō's hands."

Hokusai also changed the subjects of his works, moving away from the images of courtesans and actors that were the traditional subjects of ukiyo-e. Instead, his work became focused on landscapes and images of the daily life of Japanese people from a variety of social levels. This change of subject was a breakthrough in ukiyo-e and in Hokusai's career.

Fireworks at Ryōgoku Bridge (1790) dates from this period of Hokusai's life.

Height of his career

The next period saw Hokusai's association with the Tawaraya School and the adoption of the name "Tawaraya Sōri." He produced many brush paintings, called surimono, and illustrations for kyōka ehon during this time. In 1798, Hokusai passed his name on to a pupil and set out as an independent artist , free from ties to a school for the first time, adopting the name Hokusai Tomisa.

By 1800, Hokusai was further developing his use of ukiyo-e for purposes other than portraiture. He had also adopted the name he would most widely be known by, Katsushika Hokusai, the former name referring to the part of Edo where he was born and the latter meaning, 'north studio'. That year, he published two collections of landscapes, Famous Sights of the Eastern Capital and Eight Views of Edo. He also began to attract students of his own, eventually teaching 50 pupils over the course of his life.

He became increasingly famous over the next decade, both due to his artwork and his talent for self-promotion. During a Tokyo festival in 1804, he created a portrait of the Buddhist priest Daruma said to be 600 feet long using a broom and buckets full of ink. Another story places him in the court of the Shogun Iyenari, invited there to compete with another artist who practiced more traditional brush stroke painting...

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	Hokusai Katsushika Hokusai (1769-1849) was one of the greatest of the Japanese printmakers, painters and book illustrators. This richly illustrated monograph provides an overview of the master's life and work...	Buy for $32.97
	Hokusai's Mount Fuji: The Complete Views in Color This complete collection of Hokusais famous views of Mount Fuji is the only high-quality reproduction of these engravings, long considered the Japanese masters greatest works. Taken from the best en...	Buy for $19.77
	Hokusai, First Manga Master More than a hundred years before Japanese comics swept the globe, the master engraver Hokusai was producing beautiful, surreal, and often downright wacky sketches and drawings, filled with many of the...	Buy for $13.57
	Hokusai and Hiroshige: Great Japanese Prints from the James A. Michener Collection, Honolulu Academy of Arts	Buy for $31.50
	120 Japanese Prints CD-ROM and Book (Full-Color Electronic Design Series) Much admired and highly prized worldwide, the romantically idealized figures and objects in this superb collection of Japanese prints depict a wide range of subjects — from courtesans, geis...	Buy for $13.57
	Hokusai: The Man Who Painted a Mountain A tribute to an artist unafraid to break with tradition. In her own glowing paintings and lucid text, Deborah Kogan Ray tells the fascinating life story of the Japanese artist Hoku...	Buy for $14.40
	Hokusai One Hundred Poets This lavishly illustrated, oversized (17" x 10") book brings together the last major print series of the celebrated Japanese artist Hokusai (1760-1849) and the Japanese poetry that inspired these beau...	Buy for $39.99
	Hokusai: Mountains and Water, Flowers and Birds (Pegasus Series) This delightful selection of prints depicting nineteenth century Japan's natural beauty is a colorful introduction to the country's most beloved artist. The Japanese artist Hokusai spent the secon...	Buy for $11.21
	Araki meets Hokusai This catalog presents for the first time photographs of the Japanese artist Nobuyoshi Araki in combination with classical Japanese woodcuts from the Hanoverian collection of Michael Thun, which bel...	Buy for $44.10
	Hokusai: One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji by the renowned Japanese artist Hokusai is a work of unending visual delight. Considered Hokusai's masterpiece, this series of images captures the simple, elegant shape o...	Buy for $20.95
	Japanese Prints: 16 Art Stickers (Pocket-Size Sticker Collections) Beautiful reproductions of Katsushika Hokusai's Kingfisher, Irises, and Pinks; Kitagawa Utamaro's The Courtesan Hinazuru at the Keizetsuro; Eisui's Somenosuke of the Matsubaya	Buy for $1.50
	One Day in Japan With Hokusai (Adventures in Art and Architecture) Kiku and Yoshi can't wait to visit their grandfather, Japan's most famous artist, Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). Their adventure begins in the bustling streets of Edo (now known as Tokyo), where the...	Buy for $11.96
	The Old Man Mad About Drawing: A Tale of Hokusai In 1993, François Place's The Last Giants was universally acclaimed a work of great, if heartbreaking, originality. In this recent effort, he brings to life the immortal Japanese illustrator and print...	Buy for $15.56
	Hokusai Hokusai was one of the great masters of the Japanese woodblock print. His exquisite compositions and dynamic use of color set him apart from other printmakers, and his unequalled genius influenced bo...	Buy for $19.77
	Drama and Desire: Japanese Painting from the Floating World, 1690-1850 A rare gem: Drama and Desire presents 69 masterpieces of Japanese ukiyo-e painting by such renowned masters as Hokusai, Utamaro and Harunobu, among others--all depicting aspects of the so-called "floa...	Buy for $34.65
	Hokusai and His Age	Buy for $133.00
	THE HOKUSAI SKETCH-BOOKS: SELECTIONS FROM THE MANGA	Buy now
	Hokusai's Woodblock Prints: 24 Art Cards Hokusai's images from nature and portraits of geishas and samurai revolutionized the 19th-century art world. Years later, his works continue to inspire and influence. This collection features 24 ...	Buy for $6.95
	the Hokusai Sketchbooks: Selections from the Manga	Buy for $65.00
	Bullfinch and Cherry Tree Journal A beautiful reproduction of Hokusai's 'Bullfinch and Cherry Tree', this journal features a cover with an embossed design highlighted by delicate lines of silver foil. As a bonus, the inside pages are ...	Buy for $11.89