Katsushika Hokusai

Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) was born in Edo, now Tokyo, and worked as a painter and printmaker for more than seventy years. After an apprenticeship to a woodcarver he entered the studio of the ukiyo-e artist Katsukawa Shunshō at eighteen, and published his first prints, of kabuki actors, in 1779. He used at least thirty names in his lifetime; Katsushika refers to the district of Edo where he was born. He moved ukiyo-e away from courtesans and actors towards landscapes, plants, animals and the daily life of ordinary people. His Hokusai Manga, published from 1814, filled fifteen volumes with thousands of drawings. The series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, produced in the early 1830s, secured his fame in Japan and abroad, and his woodcuts were later collected by Degas, Manet, Gauguin and van Gogh during the wave of Japonisme in Europe. In all he made over 30,000 works. Here: The Great Wave off Kanagawa.