21 Facts About Katsushika Hokusai

H ighly regarded as one of the great masters of ukiyo-e, or pictures of the floating world, Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) was a printmaker and painter whose revolutionary work and enduring legacy has cemented him a prolific place within the art historical canon. He is perhaps best known for Under the Wave off Kanagawa, otherwise known as The Great Wave, a work that has become one of the most viral and influential images of pop culture today.

Read on below for 21 facts about the life and work of this eclectic artist whose artistic career spanned some seven decades.

1.        Hokusai was known by at least 30 different names

The use of different first names to correlate with different periods of production was a common practice for Japanese artists of the Edo period. However impressively, Hokusai is known to have used at least 30 different monikers throughout his career – more than any other artist of his era. Early in his career, in 1779, Hokusai first published a series of work under Shunrō, a name given by his first master. Later in life in his 70s, Hokusai called himself Gakyō-Rōjin, which translates to “the old man mad about art.”

2.        Hokusai was the first artist to use the term ‘manga’

In 1814, when he was 55 years old, Hokusai published the first volume of Hokusai Manga, a compilation of images he intended for his students and aspiring artists to copy. The first volume became an instant bestseller, and is one of the earliest recorded uses of the term ‘manga’.

3.        Hokusai believed he would live to be 110 years old

Embracing old age, Hokusai was convinced he would achieve his best work only when he reached 110 years old. Unfortunately, he never lived to see this come true. Hokusai passed away at the age of 88. At his deathbed, it is recorded that he said: “If only Heaven will give me just another two years…Just another five more years, then I could become a real painter.”

4.        Hokusai created more than 30,000 artworks in his lifetime

Hokusai produced an immense volume of works over this lifetime, with scholars estimating the number at more than 30,000 — ranging from paintings and sketches to woodblock prints, picture books and erotic illustrations. Tragically, much of his output and his studio was destroyed in a fire in 1839.

5.        Hokusai’s Under the Wave off Kanagawa is among the world’s most viral and reproduced images

Created when Hokusai was in his 70s, Under the Wave off Kanagawa, otherwise known as The Great Wave, has not just been inspirational to artists, musicians and performers over the centuries, but in popular culture it has established itself as a cult icon. The image of a giant rogue wave has been immortalized by Apple as an emoji, adapted into countless memes, and reproduced in every type of apparel and merchandise imaginable. It was made into an NFT in 2021, while in 2024, it was featured on the reverse side of Japan’s new ¥1,000 note – the first new banknote issued in two decades. The banknote also marked the first time an ukiyo-e artwork is used on currency.

6.        Hokusai’s Under the Wave off Kanagawa is commemorated as a 50,000-piece LEGO artwork

In 2020, LEGO Certified Professional artist Jumpei Mitsui spent more than 400 hours recreating the famous artwork using 50,000 LEGO pieces. The LEGO masterpiece is now permanently on view at the Hankyu Brick Museum in Osaka. Mitsui noted that to recreate this iconic work in three-dimensions, he studied countless academic papers on the topic and numerous videos of waves crashing. He then sketched a detailed model before assembling. For those wanting a home version, in 2023 LEGO released The Great Wave as an 1810-piece set under its Art theme collection.

7.        Hokusai relocated his studio 93 times throughout his life

Hokusai disliked cleaning, finding the task distasteful. As a result, Hokusai would allow dirt and grime to build up in his studio until it became unbearable, then he would simply move out. In all, it is believed he relocated his studio 93 times over the course of his career.

8.        Hokusai began his most famous works at the age of 70

While Hokusai had reached the peak of his career in his 60s, the most famous works for which he is now remembered was made in his 70s. In 1830, he began his celebrated series of landscape prints, “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji,” which includes Under the Wave off Kanagawa and South Wind, Clear Weather, also known as Red Fuji.

9.        Hokusai intended to produce 100 prints for Hyaku monogatari, or One Hundred Ghost Stories

Around the same time as “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji” was created, Hokusai produced Hyaku monogatari or “One Hundred Ghost Stories” – a series of yokai prints illustrating popular ghost stories. Although Hokusai’s original intention was to have 100 prints, it is unclear why the series concluded with just five. The series is made in reference to the parlour game Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai, or “A Gathering of One Hundred Supernatural Tales” popular during the Edo period. Played after nightfall, participants sit in a circle to tell folklore ghost and supernatural stories.

10.  Hokusai illustrated board games, paper lanterns, dioramas and drawing instruction books

While remembered as a master of ukiyo-e, Hokusai was also one of the 19th-century Japan’s leading designers of toy prints – sheets of paper intended to be cut into pieces and assembled into three-dimensional dioramas. He also produced several board games and illustrated numerous books of poetry and fiction, as well as Hokusai Manga.

11.  Hokusai was a savvy self-promoter

A savvy self-promoter, Hokusai is known to have created several massive paintings in front of a public audience. In 1804, at a festival in Edo, Hokusai painted a 180-metre-long portrait of a Buddhist monk using a broom as his paintbrush. Some years later, to push publicity for Hokusai Manga, Hokusai painted a three-storey-high Bodhidharma. In another tale, Hokusai is said to have once been summoned to the shogun’s court to demonstrate his skills, during which he painted a long blue mark then dipped chicken feet in red paint, running it across the paper to create the traditional motif of Tatsutgawa – scattered maple leaves floating down the fast-flowing Tatsuta River.

12.  Hokusai trained around 50 artists during his lifetime

Over the course of his life Hokusai trained around 50 students in the art of woodblock cutting. His youngest daughter Ei, also known as Katsushika Ōi, worked closely with him, eventually becoming an accomplished artist in her own right.

13.  Hokusai’s “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” has 46 prints

Published between 1830 and 1834, “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” experienced immediate success in Japan. Portraying Mount Fuji from different locations across the four seasons and various weather conditions, the series initially comprised just 36 prints as its name suggests. However, due to its immense popularity, Hokusai later added 10 more prints to the series. Today, there is believed to be fewer than 10 complete sets of “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” worldwide. In 2002, a complete set sold at Sotheby's went for US$1.47 million. More recently, a complete set was sold at auction for US$3.56 million, reflecting the continued interest in collecting Hokusai’s seminal work.

14.  Hokusai’s works influenced the course of Impressionism.

During Hokusai’s lifetime, sakoku, Japan’s longstanding isolationist policy, was still in force. It was only in the 1850s, after the artist’s death, that Japan began to reopen its borders and Japanese art was brought to the West. Soon enough, Hokusai’s work crossed continents, influencing the work of the Impressionists. Claude Monet became a big collector of Japanese prints, including 23 works by Hokusai which hung on the walls of his house in Giverny. Edgar Degas took inspiration from Hokusai’s sketches of geisha, sumo wrestlers and everyday city dwellers. Aside from the Impressionists, Hokusai’s work is known to have influenced artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec and American painter Mary Cassatt. Post-Impressionist Vincent van Gogh's famous Starry Night is also widely known to have been heavily inspired by Hokusai.

15.  Hokusai’s name relates to his Buddhist beliefs.

Hokusai, meaning “North Studio” is an abbreviation of Hokushinsai or “North Star Studio.” Hokusai was a member of the Nichiren sect of Buddhism, who view the North Star as associated with the deity Myōken.

16.  Hokusai’s exact date of birth is unknown

Hokusai’s speculated date of birth is most commonly 30 October 1760, the 23rd day of the ninth month of the 10th year of the Hōreki era, though historians have not yet been able to undisputedly verify this. It is, however, known that Hokusai was born in the Katsushika district of Edo, the capital of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate (now Katsushika-ku of present-day Tokyo) and his childhood name was Tokitarō.

17.  Hokusai’s artistic path began at a young age

Hokusai began painting at around the age of six, possibly learning under his father who was an artisan. At age 12, he was sent to work as a clerk in a bookshop and lending library. By age 14, he became an apprentice wood carver. At age 18, he joined the studio of ukiyo-e artist Katsukawa Shunshō.

18.  Hokusai was originally destined to be a mirror polisher

It is believed during his formative years Hokusai was adopted by his uncle who was a mirror polisher in the household of the shogun, the commander-in-chief of feudal Japan. It was thus assumed that the young Hokusai would succeed his uncle’s footsteps in this prestigious position. However, Hokusai’s artistic ambitions quickly led him down a different path.

19.  Hokusai was expelled from the studio that trained him

When Katsukawa Shunshō passed away in 1793, Hokusai remained at the school, working under Shunshō’s chief disciple, Shunko. During this period, Hokusai began to explore other styles of art, encountering Dutch and French engravings that had been smuggled into Edo period Japan. Subsequently, Hokusai’s woodblock prints began to incorporate aspects of colouring and perspective he observed in these Western works. Although Hokusai’s explorations proved revolutionary to the ukiyo-e movement, Shunko soon expelled Hokusai from the Katsukawa school.

20.  Hokusai endured several tragedies and setbacks during his lifetime

Hokusai married twice, but tragically both times his wife would pass away before him. It is also said that Hokusai outlived two of his children. At the age of 50, Hokusai was struck by lightning, then during his 60s, he suffered a stroke. In his old age, Hokusai, needing to pay off his grandson’s gambling debts, lived in poverty for the rest of his life.

21.  Hokusai remained poor until his death

Despite achieving artistic success and popularity in his lifetime, Hokusai was seemingly always on the brink of bankruptcy largely due to his own financial ineptness. Yet, as long as Hokusai could paint, little else mattered to the artist. He is believed to have even used broken pieces of sake bottles as paint palettes and the bottom end of the bottle as brush cleaners.