Amsterdam to return Kandinsky work to pre-war owners’ heirs

By MIKE CORDER
Associated Press

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The Amsterdam municipality says it will return a valuable painting by Wassily Kandinsky to the heirs of a Jewish family that originally owned it. The decision ends years of legal wrangling over the work that was sold at auction in 1940. A lawyer who has represented the heirs on Friday called the decision “a historic injustice that is being put right.” Amsterdam municipality said in a statement that it will return the 1909 painting, “Painting With Houses,” without a new ruling by the Dutch restitution committee that deals with claims of looted art due to “the long duration of the process and the importance of correcting wrongs of the past.” The painting currently hangs in Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum.