was the honorary chairman of Daishowa Paper Manufacturing in Japan. He was noted for his purchase of expensive art. Specifically, at consecutive auctions by

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shan ...

and

Sotheby's Sotheby's ( ) is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine art, fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

in New York in mid May 1990, Saito bought

Van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artwork ...

's '' Portrait of Dr. Gachet'' and a second, smaller version of Renoir's '' Bal du moulin de la Galette'' for $82.5 and $78.1 million, respectively. At the time, these were the two most expensive paintings sold, either at auction or through private sales. Taking inflation in account, they remained the two most expensive paintings until the private sale of Klimt's '' Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I'' in June 2006. It took 25 years before Saito's public auction price was broken, through the sale of

Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

's ''

Les Femmes d'Alger ''Les Femmes d'Alger'' (English: ''Women of Algiers'') is a series of 15 paintings and numerous drawings by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. The series, created in 1954–1955, was inspired by Eugène Delacroix's 1834 painting '' The Women of Al ...

'' ("Version O") at Christie's, New York, in May 2015. Saito died of a stroke six years after his acquisitions. Three years later, the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

in New York, after failing to locate the Van Gogh for an exhibition, expressed concern that both paintings may have been cremated with the owner, since Saito had mentioned in the early 1990s, after having to pay $24 million in taxes for them, that it would be better to do so, in order to avoid colossal death duties for his children. Only in 2007 did it became publicly known that the painting had been sold in 1997 or 1998 to the Austrian-born investment fund manager Wolfgang Flöttl.Lee Rosenbaum
"Dr. Gachet" Sighting: It WAS Flöttl!
ArtsJournal, January 26, 2007

References

1916 births 1996 deaths Japanese art collectors 20th-century Japanese businesspeople Papermakers Japanese racehorse owners and breeders Nippon Paper Industries {{Japan-bio-stub