Katsushika Hokusai: The Complete Story
Katsushika Hokusai, who lived from 1760 to 1849, was the Japanese printmaker behind The Great Wave, the most recognized image in all of Japanese art. He changed his name about thirty times, moved house more than ninety times, and was still chasing perfection in his late eighties.
The quick version of a very long life
Born poor in Edo, the city we now call Tokyo, in 1760.
Spent seventy years reinventing himself and his name.
Made The Great Wave in his early seventies, not his youth.
His daughter Oei was a gifted painter who worked at his side.
Died at about 88, wishing out loud for more years to improve.
He was born poor in old Edo
Hokusai was born in 1760 in a working district of Edo. He was not from a painting dynasty. As a boy he worked in a bookshop and a wood carving workshop before joining a print studio in his late teens.
That low start matters. He spent his whole life as a working craftsman selling prints to ordinary people, not as a court painter to lords.
The man who changed his name thirty times
Most artists keep one name. Hokusai used around thirty across his career, switching each time his style entered a new phase and often selling the old name to a student.
The name we use, Hokusai, was just one of them, adopted around 1798. Late in life he signed himself the old man mad about painting.
He moved house more than ninety times
By tradition he changed homes over ninety times. One story says he simply hated cleaning, so when a place got too messy he moved instead.
He cared about almost nothing except the next picture. He drew every single day, convinced he was still getting better.
He found his masterpiece at seventy
Around 1831, in his early seventies, he made the series Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji. One print in it, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, became the most famous image Japan ever produced.
It is built with woodblock printing, carved and printed by hand in layers. The full story of that single wave is in the true story behind Hokusai's Great Wave.
His daughter was his working partner
His daughter, Katsushika Oei, was a fine painter in her own right. She lived with him, ran his studio, and almost certainly had a hand in works that carry only his name, especially the night scenes with their careful light.
For years she was nearly forgotten. Today she is recognized as one of the most talented women artists of old Japan.
He taught the West how to see
When Japan opened to trade, his prints flooded into Europe and stunned a young generation of painters. Claude Monet hung Hokusai on his walls, and Vincent van Gogh copied Japanese prints by hand.
That wave of influence has a name, japonisme, and Hokusai was at the center of it.
The old man mad about painting
He wrote that nothing he made before seventy was worth counting, and that only at seventy three did he begin to grasp how nature truly worked. He expected to become a real artist somewhere past a hundred.
On his deathbed in 1849 he asked for just five or ten more years, sure that with a little more time he could finally paint something alive.
What people ask about Hokusai
Who was Hokusai?
A Japanese printmaker and painter, the most famous artist of the ukiyo e tradition of woodblock prints.
When and where was he born?
In 1760 in Edo, the city now called Tokyo.
How did he die and how old was he?
He died of natural causes in 1849 at about 88, after a life of constant work.
What is he most famous for?
The Great Wave off Kanagawa, part of his Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji.
Did Hokusai marry his daughter?
No. That is a search engine mix up. His daughter Oei lived and worked alongside him as a painter, which is very different from marriage.
What did he look like?
He left a few self portraits as a lean, sharp eyed old man, usually drawn with gentle humor.
Where can you see his work?
In museums worldwide, and at the Sumida Hokusai Museum in Tokyo, near where he was born.
One last number
Across his life he is thought to have made some thirty thousand images. And still, dying at 88, he believed a few more years would have been enough to finally get it right.
Curious about the man himself? See interesting facts about Hokusai.