Kandinsky Work Returned to Jewish Heirs by a German Museum to Be Sold

For more than 50 years, an important painting by Wassily Kandinsky, “The Colorful Life,” was held at the Lenbachhaus museum in Munich, on loan from a Bavarian bank.

The work had once been in the collection of a Dutch Jewish industrialist, Emanuel Albert Lewenstein, the director of a sewing machine factory, and his wife, Hedwig Lewenstein Weyermann.

After their deaths, which preceded the German invasion of the Netherlands, their descendants were the subject of Nazi persecution. The painting ended up being sold at auction in 1940 under circumstances now lost to history.

But in 2023, after reviewing the context in which that transaction took place, the German government’s advisory commission on Nazi-looted art recommended it be returned to the Lewenstein family.

Now the tempera and gouache painting will be offered at Christie’s in London as a highlight of its 20th- and 21st-century evening sale on Oct. 14. Christie’s expects the work to draw bids that exceed $30 million.

The highest price so far paid at auction for a Kandinsky work was 37.2 million British pounds, or about $45 million at the time when Sotheby’s offered it in 2023.

That painting, “Murnau With Church II,” had also been restituted to the heirs of its previous Jewish owners.

“The Colorful Life” was created in 1907 during Kandinsky’s extended stay in Paris with his former student, partner and fellow artist Gabriele Münter. It was the largest canvas he had so far painted and blends influences from the avant-garde art Kandinsky encountered in Parisian salons and galleries with the cultural traditions of his native Russia.

The painting depicts a festive cast of colorfully clad figures, some drawn from Russian folklore, in an imaginary landscape. One plays a wind instrument, another cradles a baby, others are brandishing swords, begging, embracing or praying.

“Works of this period are immensely rare,” said Keith Gill, vice chairman of 20th-and 21st-century art at Christie’s. He said the few other paintings from the same chapter of Kandinsky’s life are all in museums.

“It marks a turning-point in modern art and in Kandinsky’s career,” Gill said. “It’s difficult to understate how important this period of time was in Paris in terms of the development of modern art. The perception of art was changing month by month — Kandinsky couldn’t really go anywhere else to make his name.”

Lewenstein, who acquired a large collection of modern art, bought the painting in 1927. After his death, his wife is believed to have deposited it at the Stedelijk Museum for safekeeping. It was auctioned in October 1940, months after the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands. The German bank, Bayern LB (then called Bayerische Landesbank), acquired it in 1972.

Despite years of research, it has not been possible to determine the circumstances of the 1940 sale, nor who put it up for auction. The German advisory commission said there were many indications the painting was seized as a result of Nazi persecution and it should be assumed that the loss was involuntary in the absence of evidence to the contrary. Bayern LB returned the painting to Lewenstein’s heirs in 2023.

Christie’s plans to display “The Colorful Life” at its premises in Zurich, Paris, New York and Hong Kong in September, and in London from Oct. 8.

The Lewenstein heirs have recovered two further works from the family collection, including another Kandinsky, the 1909 “Painting With Houses,” which was the subject of a bitter, drawn-out dispute with the City of Amsterdam. The third returned work is a painting by the Dutch artist Jan Sluijters.

“Many years of fighting have gone by, not only for the restitution to my family but restitution to many Jewish families,” said Francesca Lewenstein Davis, one of the heirs.

The family is still looking for about 100 artworks, said James Palmer, the founder of Mondex Corporation, which specializes in recovering Nazi-looted art.

“The task is difficult, because many of the artworks are by lesser-known artists and many are drawings or prints,” Palmer said. “We discovered that some artworks have been offered at auctions in the past, and we are doing our best to locate these.”