Tadeusz Kantor, CHARACTERS FROM THE DEAD CLASS SPECTACLE, 1982-1983

46.0 x 32.5 cm - gouache, pastel, marker, paper 46 x 32.5 cm (in light of passe-partout)

signed p.d.: TK

on the reverse of the binding three stickers:

- print exhibition sticker: GALERIE DE FRANCE | [address, tel. in Paris] | [handwritten inscription:] MICHAEL KANTOR | Dessin Réf. T.K. 10 | 47 x 33 cms. | 13 VI 83, in the l.d. corner of the sticker: TK61;

- sticker with stamp and number of foreign export permit (pasted upside down);

- mpis sticker: MICHAEL KANTOR | Scenic Projects | "Characters of the play | The Dead Class" | Cricot Theatre | No. [hand flam.:] 10, in p.g. corner of sticker signed flam.: Tkantor.



The work belongs to a series of drawings entitled Ces messieurs sérieux (These serious gentlemen), commissioned by the Galerie de France in Paris in 1982-1983. The series was dedicated to the characters from The Dead Class (1975), a play in the mid-1980s already legendary and widely known in the world. The characters from The Dead Class are presented here no longer as blueprints or working sketches, but more synthetically, with detachment, though not without humor and satirical touches. Figures from the play, recorded as museum objects (puppets with props sitting in benches) were exhibited in Tadeusz Kantor's solo exhibition Métamorphoses at Galerie de France (Paris, March 4 - May 7, 1982). The Présences polonaises exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou, which opened the following year, was accompanied by performances of The Dead Class and a separate exhibition entitled Le Théâtre Cricot 2 et son avant-garde - also at the Centre Pompidou. Kantor's series of drawings inspired Dijon-based French art historian, director and theater activist Renaud Dilligent to create the theater company Compagnie Ces Messieurs Sérieux (Cie CMS) in 2010.





♣ A fee will be added to the auctioned price in addition to other costs, based on the right of the creator and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Law 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 year-long 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.