Art News: Hokusai at Dulwich Picture Gallery, Tickets and What to See

Hokusai: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji from the Iuchi Collection, at Dulwich Picture Gallery in south London until 17 January 2027, shows the whole of Katsushika Hokusai's most famous series of prints together for the first time in Britain. All 46 prints are lent by the Iuchi Collection, in partnership with the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, and the show has had strong reviews since it opened on 20 October.

What is on show

Hokusai (1760–1849) was about seventy when he began Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, published between about 1830 and 1833 by the Edo publisher Nishimuraya Yohachi. Each print shows the mountain from a different place, in a different season or weather, often small in the distance behind fishermen, travellers, coopers or workers in the fields. The prints made new use of Prussian blue, a synthetic pigment that had only recently become cheap enough to use in Japan, and they sold so well that the publisher added ten more designs, which is why a series of thirty-six has forty-six prints.

Two are among the best-known images in the world. Under the Wave off Kanagawa, known as The Great Wave, shows three boats beneath a breaking wave with Fuji small and still in the distance, and Clear Day with a Southern Breeze, known as Red Fuji, shows the mountain turned red by the early sun. The exhibition has a fine impression of the first and a rare variant of the second, never shown in Britain before.

Katsushika Hokusai, Under the Wave off Kanagawa (The Great Wave), from Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, about 1830–32. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Hokusai exhibition tickets and prices

• Dates: until 17 January 2027, at Dulwich Picture Gallery on Gallery Road, Dulwich Village.
• Tickets: adults from £21.50, including a donation. Friends of the gallery go free; membership starts at £46 a year.
• Concessions: the gallery's standard exhibition rates are £10 for students and disabled visitors, with companions free; £10 for under-30s who sign up to its free scheme; £1 for visitors on Universal Credit or Pension Credit; and free for under-18s.
• Opening times: 10am to 5pm, Tuesday to Sunday, including bank holidays. The gallery is closed on Mondays.
• Booking: tickets are timed and sold on the gallery's website, and booking ahead is recommended to guarantee entry.
• Bags: large bags and umbrellas are not allowed in the exhibition and cannot be stored, and wet coats must be left in the free lockers, which are limited.
• Getting there: trains run about every 15 minutes from Victoria to West Dulwich and from London Bridge to North Dulwich, each a ten-minute walk from the gallery, and the P4 bus from Brixton stops outside.

Talks and events

The gallery has a programme around the show. A curator's talk on 3 November and a talk by the Japanese print specialist Ellis Tinios on 14 January cost £35 each. Japanese woodblock printmaking workshops run from 28 November to 20 December, and there is a British Sign Language tour on 17 December. All are booked on the gallery's website.

Also at Dulwich, and in London

From 3 November, Charlie Mackesy: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse... and You shows the illustrator's original drawings, and it is included in a gallery ticket. Across London, Renoir and Love is at the National Gallery until 31 January and Frida Kahlo is at Tate Modern until 3 January, and Asian Art in London, the annual season of sales and gallery shows of Asian art, begins on 29 October. Our guide to what's on this week covers the rest.

What a Hokusai print is worth

Prints from Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji were made in large numbers, but few early impressions survive in good condition, and those are what collectors pay for. An impression of The Great Wave sold for $2.76 million in New York in March 2023, at the time a record for a Hokusai print. Most prints from the series sell for far less, and two impressions of the same design can differ in value many times over, depending on three things.

The first is how early the impression is. The first printings have crisp lines, the full range of colour and the gradations printed by hand, and they wore away as the blocks were reused. The second is condition: the blues and reds fade quickly in light, and trimming, stains, wormholes and old repairs all cost value. The third is whether the print is from Hokusai's time at all, because the series has been reproduced ever since, often with newly cut blocks and traditional printing, and many later prints are sold as originals.

If you own a Japanese print and are thinking of selling, send us photographs of the front and the back, in good daylight, for a free valuation. There is no obligation to sell, and we act for you rather than for the saleroom.

Cover: Katsushika Hokusai, Clear Day with a Southern Breeze (Red Fuji), from Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, about 1830–32. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.