Notorious Art Collector Charles Saatchi Is Selling Off Another 100 Works From His Gallery in a Low-Priced Christie’s Online Auction

Charles Saatchi will sell
100 works by emerging artists from his Saatchi Gallery
collection via an online sale with Christie’s next
month.

“Handpicked: 100 Artists
Selected by the Saatchi Gallery” is the fourth such public auction
from the gallery’s holdings, but the first one
to be held entirely
online. Estimates for works range from £1,000 to
£15,000 and the auction is slated for May 12 through 28.
Saatchi, an eminent art collector, is renowned as one of the great
speculative patrons of the Young British Artists era. His
reputation took a turn for the worse after he publicly attacked his
then-wife, the chef and author Nigella Lawson, in 2013; they have
since divorced.

“It’s a nice delve into what is really one of the most
established and well-known public contemporary collections in the
UK,” says Tessa Lord, the head of the auction
house’s Post-war and contemporary art evening sale.

Included in the sale are works by David Brian Smith, Maria
Farrar, Julia Wachtel, and US artist Mequitta Ahuja, a 2018
Guggenheim Fellow. Her Autocartography I (2012),
which has been in the Saatchi Gallery collection since 2013,
carries an estimate of £12,000 to £18,000. In an online Christie’s
sale in February, another work by the
artist fetched £60,000, outstripping its high £8,000
estimate and setting an auction record for he work.

One highlight on the more
affordable side of things is a picture by French photographer
Pierre Carreau, which has a low estimate of £1,000. The work,
depicting a hyperrealist wave, has been in the Saatchi collection
since 2015.

Lord says the decision to hold
an online sale was a “natural progression,” and says she is
optimistic after having
observed a “considerable” amount of crossover between collectors
who bid in person, and those who do online.

“People are very well versed in
online bidding, and I think it’s almost a universal truth at the
moment that people are becoming more familiar with engaging online
in every aspect of life,” Lord says. “I think due to these
extraordinary circumstances, that is only going to continue to
grow.”

In 2013, Saatchi put up 50 large-scale sculptures for sale
through Christie’s in an auction that had no estimates or
reserves. The auction was seen by industry insiders as
an attempt to “force dealers into bidding to support their
artists’ prices,” according to the Financial Times, and it pulled
in £3 million.

Another Christie’s sale from the Saatchi Gallery collection in
2018 included 50 more lots.

The post Notorious Art Collector Charles Saatchi Is Selling
Off Another 100 Works From His Gallery in a Low-Priced Christie’s
Online Auction appeared first on artnet News.