Charles Saatchi

Charles Saatchi was born in Baghdad, Iraq, the second of four sons, to the wealthy family of Nathan Saatchi and Daisy Ezer. The name "Saatchi" ساعتچی, which means "watchmaker" in Turkish, has a long history in Iran and its bearers are mostly Jewish. Saatchi's brothers are David (born 1937), Maurice (born 1946) and Philip (born 1953).

In 1947, his father, a textile merchant, fled persecution in Iraq and relocated his family to Finchley, north London. Nathan Saatchi purchased two textile mills in north London and after a time, rebuilt a thriving business. Eventually the family would settle into an eight-bedroom house in Hampstead Lane, Highgate.

Saatchi attended Christ's College, a secondary school in Finchley, north London. During this time, he developed an obsession with US pop culture, including the music of Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Chuck Berry. 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.

Early career

In 1965, Saatchi undertook his first advertising role as a copywriter in the London office of Benton & Bowles, where he met Doris Lockhart (later his first wife). Saatchi paired up with art director Ross Cramer and they worked as a team at Collett Dickenson Pearce and John Collins & Partners before leaving in 1967 to open creative consultancy Cramer Saatchi.

Unusually for a creative consultancy, they took on employees: John Hegarty – previously Saatchi's art director at Benton & Bowles, who would later go on to run rival agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty – and Jeremy Sinclair, who as of 2016 still retained a senior role at M&C Saatchi. In addition to offering consulting with ad agencies they also took on some clients directly.

Saatchi and Saatchi

In 1970, he started the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi with his brother Maurice, which by 1986 – following its acquisition of advertising firm Ted Bates – had grown to be the largest ad agency in the world, with over 600 offices. Successful campaigns in the UK included Silk Cut's advertisements in preparation for the ban on named tobacco advertising, and the Conservative Party's 1979 general election victory – led by Margaret Thatcher through the slogan "Labour Isn't Working".

According to the Times Online, Saatchi is "reclusive", 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."

In the Sunday Times Rich List 2009 ranking of the wealthiest people in the UK, he was grouped with his brother Maurice, with an estimated joint fortune of £120 million.

Marriages

Saatchi first met Doris Lockhart Dibley (as she was then known) in 1965 when she was a copy group head above him at Benton & Bowles. She was a native of Memphis, Tennessee, and Kevin 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 American art and minimalism. They lived together for six years before getting married in 1973 and divorcing in 1990.

Saatchi's second wife was Kay Hartenstein (to whom he was married from 1990 to 2001), an American Condé Nast advertising executive from Little Rock, Arkansas. Together they have a daughter, Phoebe.

In 2003, Saatchi married his third wife, British journalist, author and cook Nigella Lawson. In January 2011, Saatchi and Lawson moved from their former home in Belgravia to a new home in Chelsea, London. This was a double fronted seven-bedroom villa converted from its former use as a warehouse and 200 metres from Saatchi's contemporary art gallery in King's Road. They lived with her two children Cosima and Bruno, as well as Phoebe.

In June 2013, while dining at Scott's, a London seafood restaurant, Saatchi was photographed with his hands around Lawson's throat. The day after the pictures were published, Saatchi said they were misleading and depicted only a "playful tiff". He was formally cautioned for assault and voluntarily accepted the caution following an investigation by the police.

In early July of the same year it was announced that the couple were to divorce. Lawson cited ongoing unreasonable behaviour in her divorce petition. On 31 July 2013, seven weeks after the incident, Saatchi and Lawson were granted a decree nisi. They reached a private financial settlement. R v Grillo and Grillo, a trial for fraud involving the former couple's two Italian-born personal assistants, sisters Elisabetta and Francesca Grillo, began on 27 November 2013.

In the same year Saatchi began a relationship with Trinny Woodall, an English beauty entrepreneur and author. The couple has split.

Charles Saatchi and his brother founded an independent Jewish synagogue, named Saatchi Shul in Maida Vale, London, England, in 1998, in honour of their parents.

In December 1998, Saatchi donated 130 artworks to a Christie's auction that raised £1.7 million, creating scholarship bursaries at four London art schools.

In February 1999, he gave an additional 100 pieces of artwork from his collection to the Arts Council of Great Britain.

In July 2010, Charles Saatchi announced he would be donating the Saatchi Gallery and over 200 works of art to the British public. The donation was estimated to be worth £30 million.