Katsushika Hokusai Visits Melbourne’s NGV
Manga Master and one of the most influential and prolific artists in the history of Japanese art,Katsushika Hokusai is alive and well at the National Gallery of Victoria. He lives and breathes through his most insightful and extraordinarily innovative body of work ever collectively exhibited in Australia. If there has ever been an NGV exhibition not to be missed, this is the one.
Self-described as ‘Old man mad about drawing’ and renowned for his unconventional behaviour, he is known to have signed and sealed his prolific body of work with more than thirty different names during his lifetime. Perhaps intentionally to confound as well as annoy the “Art Intelligentsia” given his rebellious and anti establishment persona. His early Manga works, first published in 1814, credit him (arguably) as the originator of cartoon illustration as well as comic book satirical caricature.
Despite his fame, Hokusai never prospered and his years of greatest artistic production were spent in poverty. He travelled and moved his studio often, finding inspiration through close observations of nature and his everyday interactions with ordinary people. By the 1830s, Hokusai had achieved world wide recognition through his innovative visual approach as well as his amazing dexterity with his medium. Before his death in 1849, he had become the most famous artist in Japan.
The NGV Hokusai Exhibition features, for the first time in Australia, 176 complete works. The works from the Ukiyo-e Museum collection in Matsumoto Japan as well as the NGV Collection. Together these works comprehensively encompass the artist’s most remarkable talent and seventy-year career.
On now at NGV until October 17
Katsushita Hokusai At National Gallery Of Victoria
View our Hokusai Woodblock Prints for sale here Hokusai woodblock prints at Kasasagi online
If you are looking for a specific Hokusai woodblock print please email us as we do not catalog all our prints on our website.
Katsushita Hokusai Wikipedia Biography
