Crawfish

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.

1804–1815

Illustrating the novels of Takizawa Bakin

Hokusai illustrated books by the popular novelist Takizawa Bakin; the fantasy novel Chinsetsu Yumiharizuki (Strange Tales of the Crescent Moon, 1807–1811), about Minamoto no Tametomo, made him especially famous. After thirteen works the partnership broke up, whether over clashing personalities or over how the illustrations should be drawn.

1812

Friendship with the artist Bokusen

Hokusai began a close friendship with the artist Bokusen (1775–1824), thanks to which the Hokusai Manga albums came out in Nagoya between 1814 and 1834.

1812

Journey to the Kansai region

The sketches Hokusai made on a journey to the Kansai region so amazed his pupils Maki Bokusen, Hokuun and Hokutei that they persuaded their teacher to publish them as a book — the origin of the Hokusai Manga.

1814

The first volume of the Hokusai Manga

The first 54-page volume of the Manga, signed Tamekazu, appeared in Edo and Nagoya and sold out within about a week. This diary in drawings — city scenes, people, animals — grew to twelve volumes in the artist's lifetime and is called an “encyclopedia of the Japanese people”.