Hokusai was a Japanese print-maker who lived at the beginning of the 19th Century and had no less than thirty different names over the course of his lifetime. The famous Great Wave off Kanagawa is the first print from a series of thirty six which he created under the name Katsushika Hokusai during his sixties (when he was widely regarded to be producing his best work … so it’s never too late!). The central theme of the prints is Mount Fuji which can be seen in the background. As a Japanese Buddhist, the mountain represented the gifts of life and immortality, and Hokusai had something of a lifelong obsession with it, returning to it again and again in further print series.