Like Van Gogh

“It is not because I sell little that I am a bad painter.” On August 22, 1882, Vincent van Gogh closed a letter to his brother Theo with these words, complaining of the hurtful remarks of a shortsighted art dealer. As he explained, and contrary to the dictates of short-term economics, one could fail to be a commercial artist while excelling in creation. As we know, only a single painting by Vincent sold during his lifetime. But Theo, himself an art dealer, carefully kept a stock of his works, planning one day to stage a grand exhibition. Alas, death overtook them both.

ArtMarket/ Justice

The art market does not dispense justice. Beyond talent, it depends on such disparate factors as social ease, commercial strategy, the luck of finding the right intermediaries, and above all the artist’s own will to achieve social recognition.

 Paris at the center ot the art world

Before the Second World War, Paris was without doubt the world’s epicenter of the art market. Artists from across the globe converged there to engage with the modernity of the Cubists and pioneers of abstraction above all, searching for new ways of painting. In Montmartre and later Montparnasse, they rubbed shoulders in cafés and dance halls with those who embodied the “avant-garde.”

Foujita: the mentor

Such was the case for the Japanese painter Toshio Bando (1895–1973), who had trained in Japan before arriving in Paris in July 1922. He made his home in Montparnasse, guided by a compatriot who had preceded him to Paris in 1913: Tsuguharu Foujita (1886–1968). The elder artist acted as a mentor, generously introducing him to creative circles. Bando soon encountered the legendary model and muse Kiki de Montparnasse, whom he asked to marry him.  He was also captured by the lens of Man Ray, the star photographer of the avant-garde. But when Foujita later distanced himself from Bando—the reason for their quarrel remains unknown—the younger artist lost access to wider success.

Man Ray

Kimie Bando

As his only daughter, Kimie Bando, told us: “He was modest and discreet by nature. He never spoke of the oblivion into which he eventually fell. He was taciturn, in the Japanese tradition.”

Bando spent much of his life on rue Nicolo in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, in a modest house with his wife, a singing teacher who supported the couple. When his daughter was born, he even set aside painting for a time to care for her. As Kimie showed us, he carefully assembled a scrapbook of clippings and exhibition programs chronicling his career. The richest years were the 1920s.

An excellent painter

Bando was an excellent painter, animated by a unique verve. Yet the rest of his story unfolded quietly, away from the limelight.

Signs of revival

Now, fifty-two years after his death, his market is showing slight signs of revival in Paris. On October 14, 2025, 67 paintings and drawings by Bando will be offered at Hôtel Drouot by the Ader auction house. The average estimate is just €1,500. The highest-valued lot (€8,000) is a Self-portrait with Dog and Cigarette Holder painted around 1928. His style is distinctive: precise and delicate, painted in muted tones with backgrounds most often in pale, plaster-like shades. The poses are deliberately static, favoring nostalgic scenes of everyday life and Parisian views. There is something of Foujita’s touch in his surfaces, though Bando at times flirted with Surrealism.

According to auctioneer David Nordmann of Ader, most of the works come from a Japanese collection: “On April 4, 2025, we sold the collection of Jacques Boutersky, the dealer who specialized in Bando. That success drew the attention of a Japanese collector who is selling his collection next October. We sold 100% of the lots and set several records. Some works estimated at €4,000 soared to €50,000. Portraits are by far his most sought-after theme.”

Self-portrait with a dog

That April sale set the current record for Bando, with a Self-portrait with Brushes of 1925 in which the artist sits in a Buddha-like pose. In the October auction, alongside the Self-portrait with Dog and Cigarette Holder (est. €8,000), a historic 1923 watercolor depicting Foujita in his studio will also be offered—an emblematic work from Bando’s Paris debut.

Solitude

In 2011, Saint Honoré Art Consulting,  a private dealer in Paris, devoted an exhibition to him, curated by specialist Helen Szaday. In the catalogue she noted that between 1924 and 1931 Bando signed a contract with the prestigious Galerie Chéron, rue La Boétie, and underlined his discretion: “Bando’s works express a real solitude. This shy man was little accustomed to group life.” She also quoted his wife: “Bando is an artist in the fullest sense of the word. He is a dreamer, with all the qualities and flaws that such a state entails.”

Hanging dolls

Until April 2025, the artist’s record stood at €30,000, achieved in 2018 for a haunting quasi-still life of dozing cats and hanging dolls in an interior. In the October sale, a similarly uncanny 1920s toy scene mimicking human life in pastel tones carries an estimate of €1,500. Bando also used dolls to stage suggestive situations: Two Reclining Dolls (1927, est. €1,200) and The Whisperers (1937) evoke two women in bed, recalling Courbet’s Sleepers (Le Sommeil) at the Petit Palais in Paris. This use of dolls to depict adult themes echoes the Surrealists, from Hans Bellmer to Man Ray.

Realist style

Not all of Bando’s subjects are equally strong, but his early Parisian landscapes (estimated around €2,500) stand out for a realism that, more than twenty years later, would characterize the early career of Bernard Buffet (1928–1999).

Despite today’s sluggish art market, the low estimates should entice buyers—until, perhaps one day, in Japan, where he remains virtually unknown, or in France, his adoptive homeland, a museum finally devotes to Toshio Bando the retrospective he deserves.

October 14, Hôtel Drouot, Paris – www.ader-paris.fr