Tadeusz Kantor, NACCHING THE PLATFORM - Fear for the MORNING, 1961

20.7 x 27.0 cm - pen ink, marker, watercolor, varnish, paper signed in ink p.g.: T. Kantor | may | hamburg 1961

lower across composition: stretching canvas | scarecrow, inscription l.d.: a Mr. G. Lilia [or: Lidia] | Stochholm [!] 1975



♣ to the price auctioned, in addition to other costs, will be added a fee resulting from the right of the artist and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Act of February 4, 1994 - on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite)

Tadeusz Kantor (Wielopole Skrzyńskie 1915 - Krakow 1990) studied stage design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow from 1934 to 1939. In 1942 he founded the Underground Theater, which operated until 1944, giving two performances: "Balladine" and "Return of Odysseus." While working on the performances, a group of artists formed, who in 1945, under Kantor's leadership, formed the "Group of Young Artists." This in turn became the nucleus of both the experimental Cricot 2 Theater (created in 1955) and the second "Cracow Group" (created in 1957). In 1947 Kantor was on a one-year scholarship in Paris, and upon his return he was one of the organizers of the First Exhibition of Modern Art, Krakow 1948/49. In 1950-1954 he did not participate in exhibitions. Since 1955, his work ran on two tracks. On the one hand, he was active as a painter, creator of "ambalages" and, from 1965, happenings; on the other hand, he devoted himself to working on successive Cricot 2 performances, each of which was an artistic event, especially since the 1970s: "The Dead Class" (premiere 1975), "Wielopole, Wielopole" (1980), "Let the Artists Die" (1985), "I Will Never Return Here" (1988); he died after the last rehearsal of the performance "Today Is My Birthday" (premiere 1991). He collaborated constantly with galleries: Krzysztofory in Cracow (where Cricot 2 theater was also based) and Foksal in Warsaw. Since 1979, he and the Cricot 2 theater stayed mainly in Florence. He was a theoretician of art and theater and the author of many manifestos. He participated in international exhibitions of the highest rank, such as Documenta in Kassel (1959, 1965), Venice Biennale (1960), Sao Paulo Biennale (1967). He received, among others, the Prix Rembrandt of the Goethe Foundation, Basel 1978, the Medal "Arts et Lettres" of the French Minister of Culture 1982, the Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation Prize, New York 1982 and many theater awards.