---
node: katsushika_hokusai
type: person
slug: katsushika_hokusai
title: "Katsushika Hokusai"
lead: "Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) was the ukiyo-e master whose print 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa' is likely the most recognized Japanese image on earth. His work helped ignite Japonisme and influenced the Impressionists."
published: 2026-07-09
updated: 2026-07-09
---

## Who they were

Katsushika Hokusai was an ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of world fame. Immensely prolific across some seventy working years — his output is said to run to tens of thousands of works — he called himself "the old man mad about painting".

## What they did

His "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji", from the early 1830s, includes "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" — likely the most recognized Japanese image on earth. The "Hokusai Manga" sketchbooks, published from 1814, taught generations to draw. He was famously restless: he changed his art name dozens of times and moved house constantly — a traditional count says over ninety times. A recorded anecdote has him, on his deathbed at 89, wishing for just a few more years to become a true painter.

## Legacy

His prints, reaching Europe, helped ignite Japonisme and influenced the Impressionists; the Great Wave is a global icon.