Self-Portrait as a Fisherman

Self-Portrait as a Fisherman is a Katsushika Hokusai ukiyo-e print of 1830 in the Art Institute of Chicago. Self-portraits are rare in Edo ukiyo-e, and rarer still in the work of an artist who reinvented his name and signature so many times over a long career. By presenting himself as a fisherman, Hokusai draws on a venerable East Asian tradition in which the recluse-fisherman stands for a life spent close to nature, detached from worldly status. He had used the name Manji and Hokusai itself for different phases of his work, and by 1830 he was deep in the landscape projects that would dominate his last decades, so the choice to depict himself as a working man on the water is a quiet but pointed statement about how he understood his own practice. The composition is direct and economical, with the figure clearly defined and the surrounding landscape sketched in just enough detail to support the role. As an Edo ukiyo-e print, the sheet is unusual for being both portrait and self-presentation, and it provides one of the most personal images in the artist's entire output. The Art Institute of Chicago holds the work within its Hokusai collection.