Tadeusz Kantor (6 April 1915 – 8 December 1990) was a Polish painter, assemblage and Happenings artist, set designer and theatre director.

Born in Wielopole Skrzyńskie, Galicia (then in Austria-Hungary, now in Poland), Kantor graduated from the Cracow Academy in 1939.

Specific examples of such changes to standard theatre were stages that extended out into the audience, and the use of mannequins instead of real-life actors.

In 1955, with a group of visual artists disenchanted with the growing institutionalization of avant-garde, he formed a new theatre ensemble called Cricot 2.

In the 1990s, his works became well known in the United States due to presentations at Ellen Stewart's La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club.