Katsushika Hokusai, known mononymously as Hokusai and by dozens of other names throughout his life, remains Japan’s most legendary artists over 150 years after his death.

Even if his name doesn’t ring a bell, you know his work.

You’ve seen it on t-shirts, as murals, on curtains at your local sushi restaurant. His woodblock print The Great Wave off Kanagawa is considered perhaps the most reproduced artwork in history.

Even outside of the collection in which it was published, The Great Wave has become a universal symbol of nature’s power, Japan’s cultural legacy, and the timeless strength of great art.

Born in Edo (the former name for Tokyo) in 1760, Hokusai began his career as a fourteen-year-old apprentice to a woodblock carver.

By eighteen, he’d joined the Katsukawa school of ukiyo-e where he carved and printed images of courtesans and kabuki actors that were the pop culture of the Edo period. 

From these humble beginnings, Hokusai developed a woodblock technique that elevated the ukiyo-e form into something more reflective, more natural, and more complex.

His prints featured landscapes, animals, spiritual themes, ghosts, and scenes from daily life across all social classes. It was art not just for the elite, but for everyone.

This restless spirit would define his entire life.

With each evolution of his style, career, and personality he became someone new — complete with new names.

He became Hokusai in 1798, became Taito (meaning Star Blessed) after a lightning strike in his 50s in 1811, and from 1834 he was Gakyo Rojin Manji or, literally translated, The Old Man Mad About Art.

Despite 200 years of tight isolationist policy, a trickle of Western knowledge made its way through to Hokusai. In 1793, the artist encountered French and Dutch engravings. They made a profound impact on his constantly developing style. 

He began to incorporate Western-style perspective, shading, and composition into his new prints. Mountains and buildings would gain incredible depth. Figures in his complex still lifes would begin to move in space rather than just upon it.

Even new colours bled into his work. The Great Wave famously uses Prussian blue in the turbulent waters which, in turn, revolutionised colour in Japanese prints.

In 1811, at the age of 51, Hokusai adopted the name Taito after a lightning strike. This strike spurred in him a new productivity and he entered one of the most prolific periods of his life.

Among other work like drawing manuals from which other artists could learn, he published Hokusai Manga — manga here literally meaning, “random sketches.” Originally intended as teaching tools and some quick money makers, these collections of caricatures, still lifes, animals, landscapes, and fantasy were wildly popular.

By 1820, Hokusai had published 12 volumes of Hokusai Manga and three more followed after his death.

Hokusai’s masterpiece, however, came late in life. Around 70 years old, the artist — known now as Iitsu — began his most famous work: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. This work was begun in 1820 and completed by the early 1830s. 

In the collection Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji are found the original publication of The Great Wave off Kanagawa and Red Fuji (or Fine Wind, Clear Morning).

"Though as a ghost, I shall lightly tread, the summer fields.”

In 1849, aged 88, Hokusai died. His studio and much of his work had been destroyed by fire ten years before and he’d spent the last years of his life with a fading career subsumed by younger artists. Nevertheless, he continued to work, finishing The Dragon of Smoke Escaping from Mt Fuji and Tiger in the Snow in early 1849.

Despite his prodigious output and his enduring legacy among the global pantheon of artists, Hokusai was never satisfied with his skill.

"If only Heaven will give me just another ten years... Just another five more years, then I could become a real painter."

On his tombstone is his final name: Gakyo Rojin Manji. The Old Man Mad About Art.

A once-in-a-millennium talent, Hokusai remains a cornerstone of Japanese cultural identity and a beacon of cross-cultural artistic influence.

Indeed, even though he never left Japan his work had a profound impact on Western art.

When Japan opened to international trade in the mid-19th century, his prints began to appear in Europe. There they sparked a fascination known in French as “Japonisme.”

Artists like Monet, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Degas were deeply influenced by Hokusai’s compositions, perspective, and flat planes of color. Van Gogh copied some of Hokusai’s prints in his sketchbooks. Even Debussy wrote La Mer inspired by Hokusai’s most famous piece and this composition would, in turn, inspire John Williams’ 1975 soundtrack for Jaws. 

Long after his death, The Great Wave continues to break on distant shores.