Tadeusz Kantor - The Funeral

The Funeral – 14.12.1990

Extensive rehearsals were underway for the January premieres in Toulouse and Paris of the Today’s My Birthday. They took place in Krakow, in a rented space of a building on the corner of Zaleskiego and Grunwaldzka streets. On the 7th December Tadeusz Kantor was to first merge the scenes into one. He felt ill at the morning rehearsal and came back to his atelier in the attic of Sienna 7. In the afternoon, feeling better, he went to Kanonicza Street, to Cricoteca. He joked, made plans for the future. He had dinner at Sienna, brought in by the waiter from Wierzynek. He got seriously ill in the evening. A doctor friend – Wanda Koromblowa – was called in. She brought Kantor in to the Narutowicza Hospital. He demanded to be immediately released, lying on the hospital bed and hooked up to the medical equipment. He had a serious heart attack in the morning. Kantor died on the 8th December 1990, on Saturday. Six days later, a crowd of thousands saw him from Cricoteca to the Rakowicki Cemetery. One of the priests performing the service was Julian Śmietana from Wielopole Skrzyńskie. The artist was buried next to his mother, Helena Kantor, nee Berger. The grave was adorned with a sculpture of a boy at a school desk with a cross. 

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