Charles Saatchi
Charles Saatchi
Charles Saatchiis a British businessman and the co-founder with his brother Maurice of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. The brothers led the business – the world's largest advertising agency in the 1980s – until they were forced out in 1995. In the same year, the brothers formed a new agency called M&C Saatchi. Saatchi is also known for his art collection and for owning Saatchi Gallery, and in particular for his sponsorship of the Young British Artists, including Damien Hirst...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth9 June 1943
Being a good artist is the toughest job you could pick, and you have to be a little nuts to take it on.
My aim in life isn't so much the pursuit of happiness as the happiness of pursuit.
The most abiding memory of visiting Lucian Freud's studio were his eyes, with the gimlet gaze of a Hooded Falcon. But he made for very relaxing company, quick to be amused at the world and his own peccadilloes. He enjoyed the seedy squalor of his rooms in a posh house in the most desirable part of Holland Park, and living up to his persona as an oddball bohemian.
If I stop being on good behaviour for a moment, my dark little secret is that I don't actually believe many people in the art world have much feeling for art and simply cannot tell a good artist from a weak one, until the artist has enjoyed the validation of others - a received pronunciation.
Art collectors are pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. What matters and survives is the art.
Its obvious nonsense, but it makes nice people feel good about themselves to do their bit for the planet. Its vanity of a grotesque kind to believe that mankind, and our carbon footprint, has more impact on the future of Earth than Nature, which bends our planet to its will, as it sees fit.
If you can't take a good kicking, you shouldn't parade how much luckier you are than other people.
Be the Worst You Can Be: Life's Too Long for Patience and Virtue
I don't buy art in order to leave a mark or to be remembered; clutching at immortality is of zero interest to anyone sane.
Nobody can give you advice after you've been collecting for a while. If you don't enjoy making your own decisions, you're never going to be much of a collector anyway.
Many people cycle or swim to keep trim. But if swimming is so good for the figure, how do you explain whales?
If you study a great work of art, you'll probably find the artist was a kind of genius. And geniuses are different to you and me. So let's have no talk of temperamental, self-absorbed and petulant babies. Being a good artist is the toughest job you could pick, and you have to be a little nuts to take it on. I love them all.
I regularly find myself waking up to art I passed by or simply ignored.
By and large, talent is in such short supply that mediocrity can be taken for brilliance rather more than genius can go undiscovered.