LAWSUIT OVER KANDINSKY WORK SETTLED

The Norton Simon Museum will get the money from the sale of a $1.1-million painting by modern art master Wassily Kandinsky as part of an order to settle an ownership dispute.

In a six-page ruling, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Norman Epstein ordered the painting’s sale proceeds into a trust, with the money and interest equal to the artwork’s value to go to the museum at the owners’ death.

Any money left over will go to the owners’ estate, the judge said.

Epstein’s ruling involved a dispute between the Pasadena museum and art collectors Frederick and Marcia Weisman, who owned the 1911 painting titled “Nude.”

The Weismans in 1963 offered 16 pieces of contemporary art to the museum for $60,000 before the institution was bought by industrialist Norton Simon.

A lawsuit brought by the museum contended that the Weismans said they would also bequeath the Kandinsky painting to the museum after both of them died. The museum began making payments. In 1969, according to the suit, Weisman tried to break the agreement and return the payments. The museum rejected the offer.

Weisman’s attorney, Ralph Nutter, argued that his client’s 1969 letter to break the agreement coupled with the museum’s shift in focus from modern to classical art ended the commitment.