Who they were
Katsushika Hokusai was an ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of world fame. Immensely prolific across some seventy working years — his output is said to run to tens of thousands of works — he called himself “the old man mad about painting”.
What they did
His “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji”, from the early 1830s, includes “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” — likely the most recognized Japanese image on earth. The “Hokusai Manga” sketchbooks, published from 1814, taught generations to draw. He was famously restless: he changed his art name dozens of times and moved house constantly — a traditional count says over ninety times. A recorded anecdote has him, on his deathbed at 89, wishing for just a few more years to become a true painter.
Legacy
His prints, reaching Europe, helped ignite Japonisme and influenced the Impressionists; the Great Wave is a global icon.