Thinkers Timeline

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) was a Japanese painter and printmaker of the Edo period, widely regarded as the greatest artist of the ukiyo-e tradition and one of the most influential artists in world history. He was born in the commoner district of Edo (modern Tokyo) to an artisan family. Apprenticed at fifteen to a woodblock cutter, he entered the studio of the print designer Katsukawa Shunsho at eighteen and spent his twenties learning the trade. He changed his artistic name over thirty times across his long career, each change marking a stylistic shift or a new artistic ambition. The name Hokusai, meaning north studio, dates from his middle years. He produced an enormous body of work: book illustrations, sketches, paintings, and the printed series for which he is most famous. In his early seventies he began the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, which includes the Great Wave off Kanagawa and Red Fuji — two of the most widely recognised images in the world. He also produced the Hokusai Manga, fifteen volumes of drawings covering every conceivable subject, from birds and fish to grimacing faces and imaginary creatures. He lived in poverty for much of his life, moved house more than ninety times, and continued working into his late eighties. He died at eighty-eight, lamenting that he had not been given another ten years of life to become a true artist.