Charles Saatchi
Encyclopedia
Charles Saatchi is the co-founder with his brother Maurice
of the global advertising
agency Saatchi & Saatchi
, and led that business - the world's largest advertising agency in the 1980s - until they were forced out in 1995. In the same year the Saatchi brothers formed a new agency called M&C Saatchi
. Charles is also known worldwide as an art collector and owner of the Saatchi Gallery
, and in particular for his sponsorship of the Young British Artists
(YBAs), including Damien Hirst
and Tracey Emin
.
, Persian
and Turkish
. Charles' brothers are David (born 1937), Maurice Nathan (born 1946) and Philip (born 1953). Nathan was a successful textile merchant and in 1947, he pre-empted a flight that tens of thousands of Iraqi Jews would soon make to avoid persecution and relocated his family to Finchley
, London
. Nathan purchased two textile mills in north London and after a time re-built a thriving business. Eventually the family would settle into a house with eight bedrooms on Hampstead Lane in Highgate
.
Saatchi attended Christ's College, a secondary school in North London. During this time he developed an obsession with U.S. pop culture, including the music of Elvis Presley
, Little Richard
and Chuck Berry
. He also manifested an enthusiasm for collections, from cigarette cards and jukeboxes to Superman comics and nudist magazines. He has described as "life changing" the experience of viewing a Jackson Pollock
painting at the Museum of Modern Art
in New York. He then progressed to study at the London College of Communication
.
(where he met his future wife Doris Lockhart) Saatchi paired up with Art director
Ross Cramer. They worked as a team at Collett Dickenson Pearce
and John Collins & Partners before leaving in 1967 to open a creative consultancy CramerSaatchi.
Unusual for a creative consultancy, they took on employees - John Hegarty
was their first, followed by Jeremy Sinclair, who as of 2011 still retains a senior role at M&C Saatchi. In addition to consulting to ad agencies they also took on some clients direct.
In 1970, he started the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi with his brother Maurice, which by 1986 had grown to be the largest agency in the world, with over 600 offices. Successful campaigns in the UK included Silk Cut
cigarettes and the promotion of the Conservative Party led by Margaret Thatcher
through the slogan "Labour Isn't Working". Eventually, he and his brother Maurice departed the agency and together founded the rival M&C Saatchi agency, taking many of their clients with them, including the huge British Airways
advertising account.
, a New York minimalist. He initially patronised the Lisson Gallery in Marylebone, London, who specialised in minimalist works, he purchased an entire show by Robert Mangold
. On a visit to Paris in 1973 with his first wife, Doris Lockhart, he purchased a realist work by the British artist David Hepher, a detailed realist depiction of suburban houses. In the early 1980s, Doris and Saatchi purchased a 30000 sq ft (2,787.1 m²) cement-floored and steel-girded warehouse at 98A Boundary Road in the residential London suburb of St. John's Wood. The Saatchi Gallery
was opened to the public in February 1985, to exhibit the art Saatchi had collected.
At one point the Saatchi collection contained eleven works by Donald Judd
, twenty-one by Sol LeWitt
, twenty-three by Anselm Kiefer
, seventeen Andy Warhol
s and twenty-seven by Julian Schnabel
.
His taste has mutated from "School of London", through American abstraction and minimalism, to the Young British Artists
, whose work he first saw at the Freeze
exhibition. Any purchase by Charles Saatchi made news. In 1991, he turned his back on the New York art world with two major acquisitions by new British artists. He was instrumental in 1992 in launching the career of Damien Hirst
and in bringing Marc Quinn
to the forefront of the art world. His renown as a patron peaked in 1997 when part of his collection was shown at the Royal Academy
as the exhibition Sensation
, which travelled to Berlin and New York causing headlines and much offence (e.g., to families of children murdered by Myra Hindley) and consolidating the position of the YBAs.
In 2009, he published the book My Name Is Charles Saatchi And I Am An Artoholic. Subtitled "Everything You Need To Know About Art, Ads, Life, God And Other Mysteries And Weren't Afraid To Ask", it presents Saatchi's answers to a number of questions submitted by members of the public and art fraternity. From November to December 2009 he had a television programme on the BBC
called School of Saatchi
in which he gave young aspiring artists an opportunity to showcase their work. He made no appearance in the programme, only communicating through an assistant.
In July 2010, Charles Saatchi donated the Saatchi Gallery and over 200 works of art to the British public.
and Goldman describes her as "a sophisticated woman who spoke several languages, knew a great deal about art and wine and who had graduated from Smith College
and the Sorbonne
". She became known during their marriage as an art and design journalist, with particular knowledge of minimalism
. They lived together from 1967, married in 1973 and divorced in 1990.
Saatchi's second wife was Kay Hartenstein (married from 1990 to 2001), also American from Little Rock, Arkansas
who was a Condé Nast
journalist. Together they have a daughter Phoebe. Saatchi married celebrity cook Nigella Lawson
- his third wife - in 2003. In January 2011, Saatchi and Lawson moved from their former home in Belgravia to their new house in Chelsea, London. Their new home is a double fronted 7 bedroom villa converted from its former use as a warehouse and conveniently situated only 200 metres from Saatchi's contemporary art gallery in King's Road, London. They live with her two children Cosima and Bruno.
He is a notorious recluse, even hiding from clients when they visited his agency's offices, and, as of February 2009, has only ever granted two newspaper interviews. He does not attend his own exhibition openings; when asked why by the Sunday Telegraph, he replied: "I don't go to other people's openings, so I extend the same courtesy to my own." Both Hartenstein and Goldman refer to Saatchi's reclusiveness/shyness as a feint or "his shtick" affected to allow him to accept (or more often decline) invitations and social requests as he chooses.
In the Sunday Times Rich List 2009
ranking of the wealthiest people in the UK he was grouped with his brother Maurice and placed 438th with an estimated joint fortune of £120million.
Artists including John Keane
and Paul Harvey
have painted pictures of Saatchi.
Maurice Saatchi, Baron Saatchi
Maurice Nathan Saatchi, Baron Saatchi is the co-founder, with his brother Charles, of the advertising agencies Saatchi and Saatchi and M&C Saatchi, where he currently serves as Executive Director.- Early life :...
of the global advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
agency Saatchi & Saatchi
Saatchi & Saatchi
Saatchi & Saatchi is a global advertising agency network with 140 offices in 80 countries and over 6,500 staff. It was founded in London in 1970 but now headquartered in New York. The parent company of the agency group was known as Saatchi & Saatchi PLC from 1976 to 1994, was listed on the London...
, and led that business - the world's largest advertising agency in the 1980s - until they were forced out in 1995. In the same year the Saatchi brothers formed a new agency called M&C Saatchi
M&C Saatchi
M&C Saatchi is an international advertising agency network formed in January 1995 by the brothers Maurice Saatchi and Charles Saatchi after they were ousted from the advertising agency group Saatchi & Saatchi which they had founded in 1970...
. Charles is also known worldwide as an art collector and owner of the Saatchi Gallery
Saatchi Gallery
The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art, opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985 in order to exhibit his collection to the public. It has occupied different premises, first in North London, then the South Bank by the River Thames and currently in Chelsea. Saatchi's collection, and...
, and in particular for his sponsorship of the Young British Artists
Young British Artists
Young British Artists or YBAs is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988...
(YBAs), including Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
and Tracey Emin
Tracey Emin
Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....
.
Early life
Charles Saatchi is the second of four sons born to Nathan Saatchi and Daisy Ezer, a wealthy Iraqi Jewish family in Baghdad, Iraq. The name "Saatchi" means "Watchmaker", "Watchseller", "Watchrepairer" in Iraqi ArabicIraqi Arabic
Iraqi Arabic is a continuum of mutually intelligible Arabic varieties native to the Mesopotamian basin of Iraq as well as spanning into eastern and northern Syria, western Iran, southeastern Turkey, and spoken in respective Iraqi diaspora communities.-Varieties:Iraqi Arabic has two major varieties...
, Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
and Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
. Charles' brothers are David (born 1937), Maurice Nathan (born 1946) and Philip (born 1953). Nathan was a successful textile merchant and in 1947, he pre-empted a flight that tens of thousands of Iraqi Jews would soon make to avoid persecution and relocated his family to Finchley
Finchley
Finchley is a district in Barnet in north London, England. Finchley is on high ground, about north of Charing Cross. It formed an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, becoming a municipal borough in 1933, and has formed part of Greater London since 1965...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Nathan purchased two textile mills in north London and after a time re-built a thriving business. Eventually the family would settle into a house with eight bedrooms on Hampstead Lane in Highgate
Highgate
Highgate is an area of North London on the north-eastern corner of Hampstead Heath.Highgate is one of the most expensive London suburbs in which to live. It has an active conservation body, the Highgate Society, to protect its character....
.
Saatchi attended Christ's College, a secondary school in North London. During this time he developed an obsession with U.S. pop culture, including the music of Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, Little Richard
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and...
and Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
. He also manifested an enthusiasm for collections, from cigarette cards and jukeboxes to Superman comics and nudist magazines. He has described as "life changing" the experience of viewing a Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
painting at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in New York. He then progressed to study at the London College of Communication
London College of Communication
The London College of Communication is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, located in Elephant and Castle. It has about 5,000 students on 60 courses in media and design courses preparing students for careers in the creative industries...
.
Advertising career
In his first advertising role as a copywriter in the London office of Benton & BowlesBenton & Bowles
Benton & Bowles was a New York-based advertising agency founded by William Benton and Chester Bowles in 1929.-History:The agency's success was closely related to the rise in popularity of radio. Benton & Bowles invented the radio soap opera to promote their clients' products, and by 1936 were...
(where he met his future wife Doris Lockhart) Saatchi paired up with Art director
Art director
The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
Ross Cramer. They worked as a team at Collett Dickenson Pearce
Collett Dickenson Pearce
Collett Dickenson Pearce & Partners emerged from the "Swinging London" cultural shifts of the 1960s as Britain's most glamorous and influential advertising agency, generally regarded as one of the finest advertising agencies in the world during the 1970s...
and John Collins & Partners before leaving in 1967 to open a creative consultancy CramerSaatchi.
Unusual for a creative consultancy, they took on employees - John Hegarty
Bartle Bogle Hegarty
Bartle Bogle Hegarty is a British advertising agency, responsible for some notable advertising campaigns of the last 30 years. The company was founded by John Bartle, Nigel Bogle & Sir John Hegarty in 1982. Sir John Hegarty and Nigel Bogle still lead it today, together with worldwide CEO Simon...
was their first, followed by Jeremy Sinclair, who as of 2011 still retains a senior role at M&C Saatchi. In addition to consulting to ad agencies they also took on some clients direct.
In 1970, he started the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi with his brother Maurice, which by 1986 had grown to be the largest agency in the world, with over 600 offices. Successful campaigns in the UK included Silk Cut
Silk Cut
Silk Cut is brand of low tar cigarette produced by the Gallaher Group. The packaging is characterised by a distinctive stark white packet with the brand name in a purple, blue, red, silver, white or green square....
cigarettes and the promotion of the Conservative Party led by Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
through the slogan "Labour Isn't Working". Eventually, he and his brother Maurice departed the agency and together founded the rival M&C Saatchi agency, taking many of their clients with them, including the huge British Airways
British Airways
British Airways is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom, based in Waterside, near its main hub at London Heathrow Airport. British Airways is the largest airline in the UK based on fleet size, international flights and international destinations...
advertising account.
Art
In 1969, at age twenty-six Saatchi purchased his first work of art by Sol LeWittSol LeWitt
Solomon "Sol" LeWitt was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art and Minimalism....
, a New York minimalist. He initially patronised the Lisson Gallery in Marylebone, London, who specialised in minimalist works, he purchased an entire show by Robert Mangold
Robert Mangold
Robert Mangold is an American minimalist artist.- Works :“Robert Mangold’s paintings,” wrote Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times in 1997, “are more complicated to describe than they seem, which is partly what’s good about them: the way they invite intense scrutiny, which, in the nature of good...
. On a visit to Paris in 1973 with his first wife, Doris Lockhart, he purchased a realist work by the British artist David Hepher, a detailed realist depiction of suburban houses. In the early 1980s, Doris and Saatchi purchased a 30000 sq ft (2,787.1 m²) cement-floored and steel-girded warehouse at 98A Boundary Road in the residential London suburb of St. John's Wood. The Saatchi Gallery
Saatchi Gallery
The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art, opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985 in order to exhibit his collection to the public. It has occupied different premises, first in North London, then the South Bank by the River Thames and currently in Chelsea. Saatchi's collection, and...
was opened to the public in February 1985, to exhibit the art Saatchi had collected.
At one point the Saatchi collection contained eleven works by Donald Judd
Donald Judd
Donald Clarence Judd was an American artist associated with minimalism . In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for the constructed object and the space created by it, ultimately achieving a rigorously democratic presentation without compositional hierarchy...
, twenty-one by Sol LeWitt
Sol LeWitt
Solomon "Sol" LeWitt was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art and Minimalism....
, twenty-three by Anselm Kiefer
Anselm Kiefer
Anselm Kiefer is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys and Peter Dreher during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac...
, seventeen Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
s and twenty-seven by Julian Schnabel
Julian Schnabel
Julian Schnabel is an American artist and filmmaker. In the 1980s, Schnabel received international media attention for his "plate paintings"—large-scale paintings set on broken ceramic plates....
.
His taste has mutated from "School of London", through American abstraction and minimalism, to the Young British Artists
Young British Artists
Young British Artists or YBAs is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988...
, whose work he first saw at the Freeze
Freeze (exhibition)
Freeze is the title of an art exhibition that took place in July 1988 in an empty London Port Authority building at Surrey Docks in London Docklands. Its main organiser was Damien Hirst. It was significant in the subsequent development of the Young British Artists.-Organisation:Freeze was...
exhibition. Any purchase by Charles Saatchi made news. In 1991, he turned his back on the New York art world with two major acquisitions by new British artists. He was instrumental in 1992 in launching the career of Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
and in bringing Marc Quinn
Marc Quinn
Marc Quinn is a British artist and part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs . He is known for Alison Lapper Pregnant , Self , and Garden .He is one of the Young British...
to the forefront of the art world. His renown as a patron peaked in 1997 when part of his collection was shown at the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
as the exhibition Sensation
Sensation exhibition
Sensation was an exhibition of the collection of contemporary art owned by Charles Saatchi, including many works by Young British Artists, which first took place 18 September – 28 December 1997 at the Royal Academy of Art in London and later toured to Berlin and New York...
, which travelled to Berlin and New York causing headlines and much offence (e.g., to families of children murdered by Myra Hindley) and consolidating the position of the YBAs.
In 2009, he published the book My Name Is Charles Saatchi And I Am An Artoholic. Subtitled "Everything You Need To Know About Art, Ads, Life, God And Other Mysteries And Weren't Afraid To Ask", it presents Saatchi's answers to a number of questions submitted by members of the public and art fraternity. From November to December 2009 he had a television programme on the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
called School of Saatchi
School of Saatchi
School of Saatchi is a four part BBC television series first broadcast in November 2009. Young artists compete against each others, showcasing their talents, for a chance to be chosen by famous art collector Charles Saatchi to showcase their work in a worldwide renowned gallery.The winner of the...
in which he gave young aspiring artists an opportunity to showcase their work. He made no appearance in the programme, only communicating through an assistant.
In July 2010, Charles Saatchi donated the Saatchi Gallery and over 200 works of art to the British public.
Personal life
Saatchi married his first wife Doris Lockhart in 1973 - they had first met in 1965 when she was a copy group head above him at Benton & Bowles. She was a native of Memphis, TennesseeMemphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
and Goldman describes her as "a sophisticated woman who spoke several languages, knew a great deal about art and wine and who had graduated from Smith College
Smith College
Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...
and the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
". She became known during their marriage as an art and design journalist, with particular knowledge of minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
. They lived together from 1967, married in 1973 and divorced in 1990.
Saatchi's second wife was Kay Hartenstein (married from 1990 to 2001), also American from Little Rock, Arkansas
Little Rock, Arkansas
Little Rock is the capital and the largest city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 699,757 people in the 2010 census...
who was a Condé Nast
Condé Nast Publications
Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications, is a magazine publisher. In the U.S., it produces 18 consumer magazines, including Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, as well as four business-to-business publications, 27 websites, and more than 50 apps...
journalist. Together they have a daughter Phoebe. Saatchi married celebrity cook Nigella Lawson
Nigella Lawson
Nigella Lucy Lawson is an English food writer, journalist and broadcaster. Lawson is the daughter of Nigel Lawson, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Vanessa Salmon, whose family owned the J. Lyons and Co. empire...
- his third wife - in 2003. In January 2011, Saatchi and Lawson moved from their former home in Belgravia to their new house in Chelsea, London. Their new home is a double fronted 7 bedroom villa converted from its former use as a warehouse and conveniently situated only 200 metres from Saatchi's contemporary art gallery in King's Road, London. They live with her two children Cosima and Bruno.
He is a notorious recluse, even hiding from clients when they visited his agency's offices, and, as of February 2009, has only ever granted two newspaper interviews. He does not attend his own exhibition openings; when asked why by the Sunday Telegraph, he replied: "I don't go to other people's openings, so I extend the same courtesy to my own." Both Hartenstein and Goldman refer to Saatchi's reclusiveness/shyness as a feint or "his shtick" affected to allow him to accept (or more often decline) invitations and social requests as he chooses.
In the Sunday Times Rich List 2009
Sunday Times Rich List 2009
The Sunday Times Rich List 2009 was published on 26 April 2009.Since 1989 the UK national Sunday newspaper The Sunday Times has published an annual magazine supplement to the newspaper called the Sunday Times Rich List...
ranking of the wealthiest people in the UK he was grouped with his brother Maurice and placed 438th with an estimated joint fortune of £120million.
Cultural references
John Keane
John Keane is the name of:* John Fryer Thomas Keane , British adventurer* John Joseph Keane , former archbishop of Dubuque, Iowa* John Keane , British artist...
and Paul Harvey
Paul Harvey (artist)
Paul Harvey is a British musician and Stuckist artist, whose work was used to promote their 2004 show at the Liverpool Biennial. His paintings draw on pop art and the work of Alphonse Mucha, and often depict celebrities, including Madonna....
have painted pictures of Saatchi.
Further reading
- Hatton, Rita and Walker, John A. Supercollector: A Critique of Charles Saatchi, Institute of Artology, 2005. ISBN 0-9545702-2-7
- Kent, Sarah. Shark Infested Waters: The Saatchi Collection of British Art in the 90s, Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd, 2003. ISBN 0-85667-584-9
- Goldman, Kevin Conflicting Accounts - The Creation & Crash of the Saatchi & Saatchi Empire, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1997. ISBN 0-684-83553-3
External links
- The Saatchi Gallery
- Guardian Interview, 6 September 2006
- Saatchi answers reader's questions on Times Online, 4 April 2010
- Saatchi Says He’ll Give Britain His Gallery and Over $37 Million in Art, The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, 1 July 2010