Following the death of her father, Ōi’s life fell into obscurity – not even her death was recorded. Perhaps she was always dependent on him, but another, unsurprising reason might be that she was the daughter of the most important Japanese ukiyo-e artist in history, Hokusai, famed for his remarkable print design Under the Wave off Kanagawa, 1831, nicknamed ‘The Great Wave’: she was being viewed in his shadow. Ōi was Hokusai’s foremost collaborator and assistant (he greatly admired her). Nevertheless, observing the masterful control of line and fineness of pigment that continued to characterise
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