Ferryboat

1796

First uses the name Hokusai

The artist began using the name Hokusai, signing his prints and paintings with it from 1798, and in 1800 started calling himself Gakyōjin Hokusai, “Hokusai, mad about painting”. In all he used at least thirty names, more than any other well-known Japanese master.

1797

Second marriage

Hokusai married again, but his second wife also died soon afterwards. His daughter Ei, also known as Ōi, eventually became an artist and his assistant.

1798

Becomes an independent artist

Hokusai passed his name on to a pupil and, for the first time, set out as an independent artist tied to no school, taking the name Hokusai Tomisa.

1800

The name Katsushika Hokusai and his first landscape albums

Hokusai adopted the name by which the world knows him: Katsushika, after the district of Edo where he was born, and Hokusai, “north studio”, in honour of the North Star, symbol of a deity of his Nichiren Buddhist faith. That year he published Famous Sights of the Eastern Capital and Eight Views of Edo, and began to take pupils of his own — some fifty over his lifetime.

c. 1800

Daughter born: Katsushika Ōi