Umbrella Carré Delos Aurillac "La grande vague" by' HOKUSAI

The artist's biography

The great wave of Kanagawa - Hokusai Katsushika (1760 - 1849)

Hokusai was a painter, draughtsman, engraver and author of popular Japanese writings. He influenced many European artists like Gauguin, Van Gogh or Monet. After 1800, he occasionally signed his works with the expression “Gakyojin”, meaning “crazy about drawing”.

Hokusai was a foundling who was adopted by a family of craftsmen.
In 1778, he joined the studio of an engraving painter who specialized in portraits of actors. Upon the master’s death, he left the studio and went through a period of great poverty during which he studied the techniques of the schools of Kano Yusen, Tsutsumi Torin and Sumiyoshi Naiki. He was also influenced by Western art. Around 1795, he illustrated the poetry collection Kyoka Edo no Murasaki which brought him his first success.
In 1812, he started travelling around the country and published two years later and up until 1834 twelve volumes of his countless sketchbooks containing original and marginal studies.
1831 saw the completion of one of his major works, the series of engravings called Thirty-six views of Mount Fuji, which made him famous throughout the world. He also produced several series of engravings that broke with tradition (waterfalls, bridge, birds, ghosts, etc.). In 1834, he went back to drawing all his work on landscapes and published the Hundred Views of Mount Fuji.
In 1836, the year of the great famine, he survived by selling his works.
In 1839, a fire at his studio destroyed all the works from the last years.
He died on 10 May 1849, leaving 30,000 drawings.