Nationality: Japanese

Birthdate: 31 October 1760

Date of Death: 10 May 1849

GMC Ranking:

Katsushika Hokusai, better-known as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. He is best known for the woodblock print series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, which includes the iconic print The Great Wave of Kanagawa. Hokusai was instrumental in developing ukiyo-e from a style of portraiture largely focused on courtesans and actors into a much broader style of art that focused on landscapes, plants, and animals. His artworks are thought to have had a significant influence on Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet during the wave of Japonisme that spread across Europe in the late 19th century.

Though famed for his detailed prints and illustrations, Hokusai was also fond of displaying his artistic prowess in public-making, for example, huge paintings (some fully 200 square meters [about 2,000 square feet] in area of mythological figures before festival crowds, in both Edo and Nagoya. He was once even summoned to show his artistic skills before the shogun (the military leader who, although theoretically subordinate to the emperor, was in fact the ruler of Japan).