„The Dead Class”

As the late 1970s approached, Kantor’s painting turned towards figurativeness again. A realistically represented human figure is now the central theme of the artist’s paintings. In one of his texts, Kantor comments on this turn in his work: “More and more characters emerged, processions of them: Travellers and their baggage, Boys from my happy youth, Old People returning to Dead Classroom, Children trapped behind desks at school like they were prisoners, Tramps, Wandering Jews. People grown together with their objects, tables, chairs, doors, windows, death, lovers. Derelicts, hanged men, hangmen, prostitutes, the whole – as I call them – Entourage of Saint François Villon, Soldiers marching to the front, my family, my mother, father, next of kin… Sometimes I would get angry and became a cruel Judge: I nailed them, tied them with ropes, replaced their hands with green wooden boards, I twisted their faces, I turned them into ‘dumplings’ or ‘pancakes’ without as much as a trace of thought or emotion. I took revenge. It was also accusation.” In the early 1980s, many of those figurative paintings are inspired by the production of “The Dead Class”.