In 1977, Mitsuo Kano presented a series of lithographs and approximately one hundred encaustic drawings (drawings made with beeswax) in the solo exhibition Catching the Lightning 1977 at Minami Gallery. At the same time, he published the limited-edition portfolio Lithograph Portfolio: Catching the Lightning—1977, containing twelve colour lithographs in an edition of thirty copies. The following year, he collaborated with the poet and art critic Shuzo Takiguchi on the artist’s book Catching the Lightning: Elements (Shoshi Yamada, 1978). The publication included two lithographs also featured in Lithograph Portfolio: Catching the Lightning—1977, thirty colour encaustic works made with beeswax and pigments, and thirty handwritten poems by Takiguchi under the collective title “With Catching the Lightning.” Representing the culmination of more than two decades of creative exchange since their first meeting in 1954, the publication brought Kano’s imagery and Takiguchi’s words into a rich and resonant dialogue.
This work was produced during a transitional period in Kano’s practice, between his early monochrome prints, the metal-print series that first introduced colour into his work, and the vividly coloured oil paintings that followed. Executed as a richly coloured multi-stone lithograph, it captures colour with the brilliance and immediacy of a flash of lightning. For Kano, colour was not something applied to form; rather, colour itself constituted form. His exploration of colour as something that appears and is perceived instantaneously—rather than gradually unfolding—finds vivid expression in this work.