Katsushika Hokusai was an ukiyo-e artist from the late Edo period. He was born in 1760 (Hōreki 10) in Edo Honjo Warisemizu (Sumida Ward, Tokyo). He is said to have enjoyed drawing from an early age, and from the age of 14 he trained as a carver of ukiyo-e woodblock prints, but later aspired to become an artist and became a pupil of Katsukawa Shunshō. He began producing nishiki-e prints in 1779 (An'ei 8), but after Shunshō's death he left the Katsukawa school and focused on illustrating kyoka ehon (picture books of kyoka poems) and surimono (printed woodblock prints).
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Hokusai's name became widely known in his late 40s, when he teamed up with Kyokutei Bakin for illustrations in the reading books "Shinpen Suiko Gaden" and "Tsubakisetsu Yumiharizuki". In his 70s, he released a series of representative nishiki-e prints, including "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji". In his final years, he focused on producing original paintings. He died in 1849 (Kaei 2). It is said that the range of subjects he painted throughout his life was so wide that "there is nothing that I cannot paint, even in the universe". On his deathbed, he lamented, "If heaven can give me five more years of life, I will be able to become a true painter", and this anecdote conveys the insatiable curiosity and endless creative drive of Hokusai, who called himself a "mad artist". One of the illustrations from "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji", "Under the Great Wave off Kanagawa" (c. 1831), is a masterpiece known worldwide today as "Great Wave".
