Hokusai’s Complete Fuji Series Opens at Dulwich

Dulwich Picture Gallery has opened the first complete UK display of Katsushika Hokusai’s Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. The London exhibition brings together all 46 designs—not merely the 36 named in the title—and adds rare alternate impressions that show why even The Great Wave and “Red Fuji” are not fixed images.

 
 

Why the Complete Hokusai Series Is a UK First

The exhibition opened on October 20, 2026, and runs through January 17, 2027. According to the gallery’s exhibition record, it is the first time all 46 designs in Hokusai’s celebrated cycle have been presented together in the United Kingdom.

The prints come from the Iuchi Collection, which has been on deposit at the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo since 2024. The Japanese museum presented the collection earlier in 2026, making the Dulwich show a new destination for an already documented group rather than an assembly borrowed sheet by sheet from unrelated lenders.

That coherence matters. A complete set allows the recurring mountain to be followed through harbors, roads, fields, workshops, changing weather, and human labor. It also prevents The Great Wave off Kanagawa from standing in for a project whose real subject is the repeated reinvention of Mount Fuji.

 

Under the Wave off Kanagawa, commonly called The Great Wave, by Katsushika Hokusai. Library of Congress, hosted by Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain Mark 1.0. Cropped.

 
 

Why “Thirty-six Views” Contains 46 Designs

The numerical mismatch is historical, not a modern curatorial trick. Hokusai and publisher Nishimuraya Yohachi initially issued 36 designs; ten more followed, bringing the recognized series to 46 while its original title remained unchanged. The later additions belong to the series, so a display of only the first 36 would not be complete in the sense Dulwich is claiming.

The word “print” can obscure another distinction. A design is the composition cut into a set of woodblocks. An impression is an individual sheet produced from those blocks. Many impressions could be printed from one design, and they need not look identical because ink preparation, pressure, registration, paper, block wear, and subsequent exposure can all alter the result.

Dulwich confirms that all 46 designs are present, but 46 does not describe every physical sheet in the room. The gallery separately advertises the blue variant of Clear Day with a Southern Breeze, while a Guardian review published October 19 reports seeing three impressions of Under the Wave off Kanagawa. Those comparative sheets repeat designs without expanding the canonical series beyond 46.

 
 

Blue Fuji Is a Printing Variant of “Red Fuji”

Clear Day with a Southern Breeze is commonly called “Red Fuji” because familiar impressions give the mountain a warm reddish-brown slope beneath a blue sky. Dulwich is showing the rare color variant known as “Blue Fuji,” which the gallery says has not previously been exhibited in the UK.

The alternative color does not make Blue Fuji a 47th design. It is another impression of the same composition, produced with a markedly different printing scheme. The National Museum of Western Art’s 2026 special-exhibition record identifies it as an exceedingly rare blue version of the normally full-color work.

This distinction changes how the two sheets should be compared. The mountain’s outline, snow cap, forests, and cloud bands establish the shared design; the balance of cool and warm color establishes a different visual event. In Red Fuji, the isolated warm mass presses forward. In Blue Fuji, tonal unity pulls the mountain back into the surrounding atmosphere.

The comparison also belongs within the history of ukiyo-e woodblock printing, where the named artist supplied the design but carvers and printers translated it into a reproducible object. Treating either color version as a solitary painting misses the collaborative production system that made both possible.

Fine Wind, Clear Morning, commonly called “Red Fuji,” by Katsushika Hokusai. Shimane Art Museum, hosted by Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain Mark 1.0.

 
 

What Three Great Wave Impressions Can Reveal

Dulwich’s three impressions of The Great Wave offer a more controlled comparison because the underlying composition remains the same. An impression is one pulled sheet; a “state” is a more specific term for a version showing an identifiable change to the blocks or printing plan. Two sheets can therefore differ without necessarily representing two formally distinct states.

Scientific examination helps separate such causes. Metropolitan Museum of Art research found that printers mixed Prussian blue with indigo for the Wave’s dark outlines and overprinted pure Prussian blue to deepen parts of the water. The second passage of the block even compressed the paper differently, giving the color zones a minute physical relief that a screen reproduction cannot convey.

The Met’s wider analysis of the series also found that early impressions tend to retain sharper lines and that varying ratios of Prussian blue and indigo can help group sheets by printing campaign. These findings make “early impression” more than a salesroom adjective: it can describe measurable differences in line condition and material composition.

Preservation complicates the comparison further. Japanese prints are sensitive to light, and colors do not all change at the same rate. A subdued area may reflect exposure after printing rather than a deliberate choice in Hokusai’s workshop. The useful question at Dulwich is therefore not which Wave is the single correct one, but which visible differences come from printing, block wear, or the life of each sheet afterward.

 
 

Mount Fuji Holds the 46 Images Together

Seen as a complete cycle, the famous wave becomes one solution among dozens. Hokusai repeatedly shifts scale: Fuji can dominate the horizon, fit inside a barrel maker’s circular frame, or appear as a small stable triangle beyond agitated water. The mountain’s recurrence gives the changing foregrounds their structure.

In Ejiri in Suruga Province, a gust scatters sheets of paper while travelers clutch hats and clothing. Fuji remains distant and calm. The opposition resembles the Wave’s contrast between transient motion and the fixed mountain, but Hokusai builds it from air and human reaction rather than water.

Other designs place labor ahead of scenery: boatmen, craftsmen, porters, farmers, and travelers continue their work while Fuji occupies a gap, frame, or distant horizon. That attention to ordinary activity is central to both the series and Hokusai’s larger career. The complete sequence is consequently more revealing than a room of isolated masterpieces; it shows one motif tested against an expanding inventory of places, seasons, and lives.

Ejiri in Suruga Province by Katsushika Hokusai. San Diego Museum of Art, hosted by Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain Mark 1.0.

 
 

Forty-Six Designs, Plus the Evidence of Variation

Dulwich’s official record establishes the UK first: every design in the 46-work series is present. Conservation research establishes why the comparisons matter: Prussian blue, indigo, repeated printing, and block condition can materially change impressions of the same composition. Blue Fuji is an alternate impression of the design commonly called Red Fuji, while the three Great Waves are comparative sheets rather than additional entries in the canonical count. The gallery’s public listing does not state a total physical-sheet count once those variants are counted separately, so “all 46 designs plus variants” is more precise than describing the installation as only 46 objects.