Restituted Kandinsky Sells for $45 Million, Setting Record
The painting was recently restituted to the heirs of a German-Jewish family who sold their art collection under Nazi persecution.
Photo:
Justin Tallis/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Sotheby’s London sold a brightly colored Wassily Kandinsky, “Murnau with Church II,” for $45 million on Wednesday, resetting the artist’s auction record and bolstering collector confidence in blue-chip art values.
The 1910 landscape was recently restituted to the 13 heirs of a German-Jewish businessman persecuted by the Nazis, Siegbert Stern, and his art-collecting wife, Johanna Margarete Stern-Lippmann. Mr. Stern died in Berlin in 1935, and Ms. Stern-Lippmann was later forced to sell their art-filled villa before being killed at Auschwitz in 1944.
By 1951, their Kandinsky had filtered to Eindhoven’s Van Abbemuseum in the Netherlands, where it hung until being returned to the family last year.
Kandinsky, a Russian artist who lived from 1866 to 1944, was known for pioneering abstract art. This scene of Murnau, a Bavarian market town south of Munich, typifies his signature, kaleidoscopic style. The painting surpassed the $41.8 million record set in 2017 when Sotheby’s sold the artist’s 1913 “Painting with White Lines.”
Before the auction, London’s National Gallery requested to borrow it for its upcoming exhibit, “After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art,” which opens March 25. The decision to participate now falls to its anonymous buyer.
The painting is the priciest work sold so far during London’s ongoing winter auctions, which have seen redoubled competition among Asian and U.S. bidders for emerging art by auction newcomers. Bidding has proven thinner for older, pricier pieces, and some works by artists including Kees van Dongen, Christopher Wool and Tracey Emin have gone unsold.
Sotheby’s $194.1 million modern and contemporary art sale also included a $29.2 million Gerhard Richter squeegee abstract from 1986 and a $28.1 million Pablo Picasso portrait from 1938 of his daughter, Maya.
Write to Kelly Crow at [email protected]
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the, print edition as ‘Restituted Kandinsky Sells for $45 Million, Setting New Record.’
The painting was recently restituted to the heirs of a German-Jewish family who sold their art collection under Nazi persecution.
Photo:
Justin Tallis/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Sotheby’s London sold a brightly colored Wassily Kandinsky, “Murnau with Church II,” for $45 million on Wednesday, resetting the artist’s auction record and bolstering collector confidence in blue-chip art values.
The 1910 landscape was recently restituted to the 13 heirs of a German-Jewish businessman persecuted by the Nazis, Siegbert Stern, and his art-collecting wife, Johanna Margarete Stern-Lippmann. Mr. Stern died in Berlin in 1935, and Ms. Stern-Lippmann was later forced to sell their art-filled villa before being killed at Auschwitz in 1944.
By 1951, their Kandinsky had filtered to Eindhoven’s Van Abbemuseum in the Netherlands, where it hung until being returned to the family last year.
Kandinsky, a Russian artist who lived from 1866 to 1944, was known for pioneering abstract art. This scene of Murnau, a Bavarian market town south of Munich, typifies his signature, kaleidoscopic style. The painting surpassed the $41.8 million record set in 2017 when Sotheby’s sold the artist’s 1913 “Painting with White Lines.”
Before the auction, London’s National Gallery requested to borrow it for its upcoming exhibit, “After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art,” which opens March 25. The decision to participate now falls to its anonymous buyer.
The painting is the priciest work sold so far during London’s ongoing winter auctions, which have seen redoubled competition among Asian and U.S. bidders for emerging art by auction newcomers. Bidding has proven thinner for older, pricier pieces, and some works by artists including Kees van Dongen, Christopher Wool and Tracey Emin have gone unsold.
Sotheby’s $194.1 million modern and contemporary art sale also included a $29.2 million Gerhard Richter squeegee abstract from 1986 and a $28.1 million Pablo Picasso portrait from 1938 of his daughter, Maya.
Write to Kelly Crow at [email protected]
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the, print edition as ‘Restituted Kandinsky Sells for $45 Million, Setting New Record.’
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