I’ve just blown my hard-earned money on an unbirthday present to myself: I bought the Taschen edition of Hokusai, which came out on Jan. 3, 2025. On the cover there is no title, just a debossed image of one of Hokusai’s woodblock prints, and on the spine, there is simply the name “Hokusai”. This is because when you read the name, you know it refers to Katsushika Hokusai, the Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period. Formally a monograph, the book is actually titled The (Almost) Complete Hokusai, written by Andreas Marks.
Hokusai’s appeal as one of the most recognizable artist of Japan’s Edo period has never waned; in March 2023 a version of his iconic woodblock print Under the Wave off Kanagawa (or The Great Wave), from his series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, was auctioned for 2.76 million US dollars. Yes, you read that right, US$2.75 million.
It’s literally massive
This publication contains the most complete and verified collection of Hokusai’s works that has been published until now – and the key word here is “verified”. What I hadn’t known is that Hokusai used many different names for his work in different genres and media, so the challenge has always been to confirm the provenance of works attributed to him. (Which is why the title is The (Almost) Complete Hokusai.) As a result, it has has 722 pages! And we’re talking an actual coffee-table-size publication here – it’s a whopper: 11.4 x 15.6 in./28.95 x 39.62 cm; 15.32 lb/6.94 kg.
It is hardcover (obviously), clothbound (my copy is in green, but it also comes in purple), with a ribbon bookmark, and it arrived in an attractive box with the book’s cover design printed on it.
My copy, laid out on the coffee table to peruse. On the far left is one of Hokusai’s Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji.
The printing is superb – the semi-gloss pages have a lovely, smooth, weighted feel, the colours and clarity are pristine, the binding is solid. The fabric of the cloth cover looks like mint-coloured watered silk. This is what I’d call a premium product. Taschen is known for producing high quality art books, and this one is outstanding.
The critical and interesting Introduction (in English, French, and German in my edition) by Andreas Marks, contextualizes the huge collection of images. His analysis shows the difficulties with provenance and authentication of works by famous artists, after their deaths. The quote below is part of the argument:
“In contrast with most of his fellow artists, quite a few details about Hokusai’s life have been transmitted to us and many of them are now largely taken for granted. At the same time though, since these details have been recounted as anecdotes to consider them as the truth is a false premise.
The illusionary view of Hokusai is mostly derived from The Biography of Katsushika Hokusai (Katsushika Hokusai den), written by author and journalist Iijima Kyoshin (1841-1901) in 1839 […].
Kyoshin was eight years old when Hokusai died, and Hokusai had already been dead for over 40 years by the time Kyoshin began interviewing people and compiling a biography from personal hearsay but without trying to, or without being able to check anything in terms of the facts.”
The (Almost) Complete Hokusai, by Andreas Marks, p. 15
700+ images
By the time Hokusai died aged 89, his catalogue raisonné included 1,300 designs carried out in his final years under the name “Manji”. To represent his huge volume of work, the book contains reproductions of 746 woodblock prints, paintings, sketches, and book illustrations, many of them in eye-popping detail, some on fold-out pages, others over multiple pages, focusing on one part at a time. You literally see things that you’ve never noticed before. It contains images of artworks sourced from over a hundred institutions worldwide. As I have done, you can literally sit and page through this for hours and hours. The text and commentary are fascinating.
One of the three-page foldouts in the book.
The author
Andreas Marks has the right credentials to have authored this. He studied East Asian art history at the University of Bonn and obtained his PhD in Japanology from Leiden University with a thesis on 19th-century actor prints. From 2008 to 2013 he was director and chief curator of the Clark Center for Japanese Art in Hanford, California, and since 2013 has been the Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese and Korean Art and director of the Clark Center for Japanese Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. In 2024, he was awarded the commendation of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs for his contributions to the promotion of Japanese culture. You won’t get a better example of someone with his feet in two different cultures.
Recommended? Absolutely
Would I recommend it? Absolutely. This one is a keeper. If you love Hokusai’s work, or that of any ukiyo-e artist of that period, for instance Utagawa Hiroshige, it is worth the cost of about US$200.00.
I always say, if you’re going to give a publication a long life by going to all the trouble of physically printing it, then make it worthwhile. Make sure there are no factual errors or typos, smears or blurs, colour errors, paper flaws, layout problems, etc. Turn the book into an object that has its own intrinsic value. This most most certainly has value. It makes all the other books that I have about Hokusai simply pale by comparison.
SEVEN CIRCUMSTANCES 
I’ve just blown my hard-earned money on an unbirthday present to myself: I bought the Taschen edition of Hokusai, which came out on Jan. 3, 2025. On the cover there is no title, just a debossed image of one of Hokusai’s woodblock prints, and on the spine, there is simply the name “Hokusai”. This is because when you read the name, you know it refers to Katsushika Hokusai, the Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period. Formally a monograph, the book is actually titled The (Almost) Complete Hokusai, written by Andreas Marks.
Hokusai’s appeal as one of the most recognizable artist of Japan’s Edo period has never waned; in March 2023 a version of his iconic woodblock print Under the Wave off Kanagawa (or The Great Wave), from his series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, was auctioned for 2.76 million US dollars. Yes, you read that right, US$2.75 million.
It’s literally massive
This publication contains the most complete and verified collection of Hokusai’s works that has been published until now – and the key word here is “verified”. What I hadn’t known is that Hokusai used many different names for his work in different genres and media, so the challenge has always been to confirm the provenance of works attributed to him. (Which is why the title is The (Almost) Complete Hokusai.) As a result, it has has 722 pages! And we’re talking an actual coffee-table-size publication here – it’s a whopper: 11.4 x 15.6 in./28.95 x 39.62 cm; 15.32 lb/6.94 kg.
It is hardcover (obviously), clothbound (my copy is in green, but it also comes in purple), with a ribbon bookmark, and it arrived in an attractive box with the book’s cover design printed on it.
The printing is superb – the semi-gloss pages have a lovely, smooth, weighted feel, the colours and clarity are pristine, the binding is solid. The fabric of the cloth cover looks like mint-coloured watered silk. This is what I’d call a premium product. Taschen is known for producing high quality art books, and this one is outstanding.
The critical and interesting Introduction (in English, French, and German in my edition) by Andreas Marks, contextualizes the huge collection of images. His analysis shows the difficulties with provenance and authentication of works by famous artists, after their deaths. The quote below is part of the argument:
700+ images
By the time Hokusai died aged 89, his catalogue raisonné included 1,300 designs carried out in his final years under the name “Manji”. To represent his huge volume of work, the book contains reproductions of 746 woodblock prints, paintings, sketches, and book illustrations, many of them in eye-popping detail, some on fold-out pages, others over multiple pages, focusing on one part at a time. You literally see things that you’ve never noticed before. It contains images of artworks sourced from over a hundred institutions worldwide. As I have done, you can literally sit and page through this for hours and hours. The text and commentary are fascinating.
The author
Andreas Marks has the right credentials to have authored this. He studied East Asian art history at the University of Bonn and obtained his PhD in Japanology from Leiden University with a thesis on 19th-century actor prints. From 2008 to 2013 he was director and chief curator of the Clark Center for Japanese Art in Hanford, California, and since 2013 has been the Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese and Korean Art and director of the Clark Center for Japanese Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. In 2024, he was awarded the commendation of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs for his contributions to the promotion of Japanese culture. You won’t get a better example of someone with his feet in two different cultures.
Recommended? Absolutely
Would I recommend it? Absolutely. This one is a keeper. If you love Hokusai’s work, or that of any ukiyo-e artist of that period, for instance Utagawa Hiroshige, it is worth the cost of about US$200.00.
I always say, if you’re going to give a publication a long life by going to all the trouble of physically printing it, then make it worthwhile. Make sure there are no factual errors or typos, smears or blurs, colour errors, paper flaws, layout problems, etc. Turn the book into an object that has its own intrinsic value. This most most certainly has value. It makes all the other books that I have about Hokusai simply pale by comparison.
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