Rori

Details

Tadeusz Kantor (1915-1990)
Rori
signed 'Kantor' (lower left); signed, dated and inscribed 'T.Kantor XII 1957 Cracovie le titre: „RORI"' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
59 1/8 x 47 1/4 in. (150 x 120 cm.)
Painted in Krakow in December 1957

Provenance

Acquired by 1959, and thence by descent.

Exhibited

Kassel, II. documenta '59, Kunst nach 1945, July - October 1959, no. 2 (illustrated p. 212).
Dusseldorf, Kunsthalle Grabbeplatz, Tadeusz Kantor, November - December 1959, no. 6.
New York, Saidenberg Gallery, 1960.
New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Fifteen Polish Painters, July - October 1961, p. 58 (illustrated p. 27); this exhibition later travelled to Ottawa, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Utica, Toronto and Montreal.

Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent. All sold and unsold lots marked with a filled square in the catalogue that are not cleared from Christie’s by 5:00 pm on the day of the sale, and all sold and unsold lots not cleared from Christie’s by 5:00 pm on the fifth Friday following the sale, will be removed to the warehouse of ‘Cadogan Tate’. Please note that there will be no charge to purchasers who collect their lots within two weeks of this sale.

Lot Essay

Born in 1915, Tadeusz Kantor studied art and stage design at the Kracow Academy of Fine Arts and joined the avant-garde Group of Kracow in the late thirties. During the war and Nazi occupation he founded and directed a clandestine vanguard theatre group and was also active as a writer. In 1947 he went to Paris for the first time and was greatly interested in Surrealism and made contact with many of the French abstract artists.
In the 1950s, Kantor had his first important retrospectives in Poland and France while his success grew and his works began to be shown in some of the most important museums and galleries worldwide and exhibitions such as the documenta in Kassel and the Venice Biennale.

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