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Overview
The most renowned painter and print artist of the ukiyo-e school, Katsuhika Hukosai (1760-1849) was a pupil of Katsukawa Shunsho and was also said to have studied with Kano Yusen, Tsutsumi Torin III, Sumiyoshi Hiroyuki and others. He used more than thirty other art names in the course of his long career. Indeed, Hokusai enjoyed the longest career of any of the ukiyo-e artists - more than seventy years - and during this time changed his style many times, making unique contributions in all fields. As his art name 'Gakyojin' suggests, he was indeed 'mad with painting'. Particularly fine are his paintings and surimono (luxury prints), as in this example; the 'kyoka' anthologies, illustrated books (most famously the Manga, represented in Te Papa's collection) and painting manuals; and of course the prints themselves, especially the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji of Hokusai's Iitsu period.
An early source of surimono - which are often characterised as here by heavier paper, metallic pigments and embossing - lay in the production of egoyomi 'calendar prints'. Hokusai's deliberately enigmatic composition celebrating 1822, the year of the horse, is an excellent example. The tobacco-pouch clasp, printed in silver pigment in the stylised shape of a reclining horse, confirms the horse theme. The attached pipe case leans on a round box of seasoned fish (denbu). It is labelled 'Umagae Dembu Hasegawa-chō, Tokugawa', the name and address of the shop with shikishiban embossing. A toothpick and its carrying case rest on the box.
Te Papa's attractive impression of this surimono is a second edition 'A-grade' example, dating probably from the 1880s, several decades after Hokusai's death. Original versions are next to impossible to find, although there is one in the Art Institute of Chicago.
Sources:
David Bell and Mark Stocker, 'Rising sun at Te Papa: the Heriot collection of Japanese art', Tuhinga, 29 (2018), https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/document/10608
British Museum, Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎) (Biographical details), https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=147739
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art May 2019