Kantor first saw the light of day in the little town of Wielopole Skrzyńskie in 1915 (it may be no accident that “skrzyńka” is Polish for a box or crate, thus anticipating the packaging motif that figures extensively in his work, the idea that people get “packaged” in various ways). In the 1930s he studied art, whence the powerful influence of the Polish painterly avant-garde, and sometimes even his admirers forget he was an important painter as well. Theatrical experiments began with Maeterlinck’s

TheDeathofTintagiles

(1937), but the production owed less to Edward Gordon Craig, whose symbolist theatre Kantor continued to admire, than to Meyerhold and constructivism, or the Bauhaus. Interestingly, his lecture

On Dreams

(1949) cites Mayakovsky’s

How are Verses Made

(1926),…

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Citation: Hyde, George. "Tadeusz Kantor". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 May 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12542, accessed 19 March 2024.]

12542 Tadeusz Kantor 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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