Hokusai

Freer Gallery of Art founder Charles Lang Freer (1854–1919) first discovered the great Japanese artist Hokusai (1760–1849) through his woodblock prints. Beginning in 1898, Freer turned to collecting Hokusai’s paintings, and by 1907 he had gathered a collection that remains unrivaled in its holdings of original Hokusai paintings and drawings. A selection from this collection, along with a few important subsequent acquisitions of Hokusai’s work, is on view in the Freer in 2012. In the Sackler, Hokusai’s most famous series of woodblock prints, Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, goes on view March 24–June 17 as part of the museums’ celebration of Japan Spring.