London
Charles Saatchi has privately published a catalogue of 600 works of art which are available for hire. The glossy 393-page publication provides a fascinating insight into his collection. Works can be leased for £1,000 a year, in a venture intended to help fund the running of his new gallery, which opens next June in Chelsea.
An accompanying brochure sets out the charges. These range from £7,000 a year for five works to £20,000 for 20 works. Loans are also offered as part of sponsorship packages—20 works for an Exhibition Sponsor (£100,000), ten for Corporate Patrons (£20,000) and one for Corporate Associates (£5,000). Leeds solicitors Walker Morris was an Exhibition Sponsor for “The Triumph of Painting”, and Corporate Patrons include both Coutts Bank and Deutsche Bank.
The success of the new hiring scheme is not yet clear, but if a third of the catalogued works were leased off, this might bring in around £150,000 a year. This would represent a welcome income, although it would represent a relatively small part of the total costs of running the Saatchi Gallery.
The 139 artists in the “Saatchi Gallery: Loan of art” catalogue include many of the big names of contemporary art, although some of these are multiples. Works available for loan include the Chapman Brothers’ etchings Exquisite Corpse, 12 Chris Ofili watercolours, Tracey Emin’s set of photographs I’ve Got It All, two Damien Hirst spot prints and screenprints of The Last Supper, Stella Vine’s painting Hi Paul Can You Come Over, Tom Hunter’s photograph Woman Reading Possession Order, ten Gary Hume portrait prints, Gavin Turk’s photographs Oi! and four Grayson Perry pots.
But along with the high profile artists, many of the 600 works are by lesser names. The catalogue records pieces which have not been published or exhibited as in the Saatchi collection. Virtually all the art has been produced in the past ten years and it was all “amassed in London”.
