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, Tennessee 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 advertising executive. 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, as well as Phoebe.
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, though he has appeared on Nigella Lawson's television shows as a background guest. 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.
Read more about this topic: Charles Saatchi
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or life:
“The personal touch between the people and the man to whom they temporarily delegated power of course conduces to a better understanding between them. Moreover, I ought not to omit to mention as a useful result of my journeying that I am to visit a great many expositions and fairs, and that the curiosity to see the President will certainly increase the box receipts and tend to rescue many commendable enterprises from financial disaster.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Inexpressibly beautiful appears the recognition by man of the least natural fact, and the allying his life to it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)