A painting by Russian modernist Wassily Kandinsky, once owned by victims of the Nazi Holocaust, sold at Sotheby’s in London for £37.2 million ($44.55 million).
It became a new auction record for the artist.
The previous world record for Kandinsky’s work was set in 2016 when his painting “Rigid and Curved” sold for $23.3 million at Christie’s in New York.
“Kandinsky’s Murnau period defined abstract art for future generations” said in a statement by Helena Newman, European President of Sotheby’s and Head of Impressionism and Contemporary Art.
Kandinsky was living with his lover Gabriele Münter and artist friends in Murnau, Bavaria, when he painted “Murnau with Kirche II”, inspired by the local landscape while riding a bicycle. Munter herself made the inscription on the picture stretcher.
