Katsushika Hokusai Prints

Hokusai prints: iconic Japanese art for your walls

Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) remains the most internationally recognised Japanese artist of all time, and his prints have lost none of their power. Whether you are drawn to the raw force of The Great Wave off Kanagawa, the meditative stillness of his Mount Fuji landscapes or the extraordinary variety of his Manga sketches, a Hokusai print brings two centuries of visual mastery into your home.

The Great Wave and beyond

The image everyone knows, two fishing boats dwarfed beneath a towering claw of water with Fuji small and white in the distance, is just one moment in a career that spanned seventy years and some 30,000 images. Hokusai’s Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (c. 1830–1832) transformed landscape printmaking and gave the world some of its most reproduced compositions. His bold use of Prussian blue, a pigment newly affordable in Japan, gave these prints a clarity and depth that set them apart.

Ghosts, demons and waterfalls

Hokusai was also a master of the strange and the sublime. In his One Hundred Ghost Stories, he painted The Ghost of Okiku rising from a well and the terrifying Laughing Demoness. In A Tour of the Waterfalls of the Provinces, he turned falling water into pure graphic rhythm, from Kirifuri Waterfall to The Waterfall at Ono.

From the Manga to Debussy: a worldwide influence

Long before “manga” meant comics, Hokusai’s fifteen-volume Manga, encyclopaedic sketchbooks of waves, birds, demons, wrestlers and daily life in Edo, were studied by Western designers and painters. Monet collected his prints, Van Gogh described the claw-like waves of The Great Wave in a letter to his brother, and Debussy chose it for the cover of the first edition of La Mer in 1905.

Museum-quality Hokusai posters, ready to frame

Our Hokusai prints are made from high-definition archival scans and printed on thick fine art paper with exceptional colour fidelity, down to the depth of the Prussian blue. Each print ships in a rigid protective tube, ready to frame. Whether you are looking for a statement piece or building a Japanese gallery wall, you will find it here.

FAQ

What is Hokusai most famous for?

Hokusai is best known for The Great Wave off Kanagawa (c. 1831), part of his Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. He is also celebrated for his Manga sketchbooks, his waterfalls and his ghost prints, which influenced Impressionism and Art Nouveau.

What does ukiyo-e mean?

Ukiyo-e (“pictures of the floating world”) is the Japanese woodblock print tradition that flourished from the 17th to the 19th century. Hokusai was one of its greatest masters. Discover more in our Japanese woodblock prints collection.

Do Hokusai prints suit modern interiors?

Yes. Their bold compositions, flat areas of colour and graphic precision sit naturally in contemporary interiors as well as more traditional ones.