Katsushika Hokusai is the undisputed master of ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world") and one of the most famous Japanese artists in the world. Born in Edo (present-day Tokyo), he showed exceptional talent for drawing from an early age. At 18, he entered the studio of master Katsukawa Shunshō, where he learned the art of printmaking and began illustrating kabuki theater actors.

Endowed with insatiable curiosity, Hokusai refused to confine himself to a single style. He studied traditional Japanese and Chinese techniques, as well as Western perspective. This quest for freedom led to his expulsion from his school, marking the beginning of a life of wandering and constant reinvention. Throughout his career, he changed his artist name more than thirty times, each pseudonym corresponding to a new creative phase.

It was at the age of 70 that Hokusai reached the pinnacle of his art. Between 1830 and 1833, he published his most iconic series of prints: the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. It is in this collection that The Great Wave off Kanagawa can be found, an absolute masterpiece where the power of pictorial nature dialogues with the eternal silhouette of Mount Fuji. He is also credited with the Hokusai Manga, an immense collection of instantaneous sketches of daily life and nature, often considered one of the ancestors of modern manga.

Despite his immense spiritual and artistic success, Hokusai lived in relative poverty, disinterested in money and fleeing the fires that regularly ravaged his studio. On his deathbed, at 89, the man who called himself "The Old Man Mad About Drawing" (Gakyō Rōjin) regretted not living longer, stating: "If Heaven had granted me ten more years, or even five, I could have become a true painter." His work, characterized by vibrant energy and absolute technical mastery, deeply influenced European Impressionists and Post-Impressionists (such as Van Gogh, Monet, or Degas) during the wave of Japonism at the end of the 19th century.