In 1947 his father, a textile merchant, anticipated the flight that tens of thousands of Iraqi Jews would soon make to avoid persecution 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.

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.

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.

In 1969, at age 26, Saatchi purchased his first work of art by Sol LeWitt, a New York minimalist. Saatchi initially patronised the Lisson Gallery in Marylebone, London, which specialised in American minimalist works. He later purchased an entire show by Robert Mangold.

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”.

In the early 1980s, Saatchi purchased a 30,000 sq ft (2,800 m) cement-floored and steel-girded warehouse at 98A Boundary Road in the residential London suburb of St John’s Wood. The building was transformed by architect Max Gordon into the Saatchi Gallery, which was subsequently opened to the public in February 1985 to exhibit the art Saatchi had collected.

His taste has mutated from American abstraction and minimalism to the Young British Artists (YBAs), whose work he first saw at Goldsmith’s Art School. At the YBAs’ 1990 Gambler exhibition, Saatchi bought Damien Hirst’s first major ‘animal’ installation, A Thousand Years. In 1991, he acquired major artworks by Hirst and Marc Quinn, becoming instrumental in launching their careers. His renown as a patron peaked in 1997, when part of his collection was shown at the Royal Academy as the exhibition Sensation, which travelled to Berlin and New York causing headlines and some offence (for example, to the families of children murdered by Myra Hindley, who was portrayed in one of the works), and consolidating the position of Hirst, Emin and other YBAs.

He 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 2009, he published the book My Name Is Charles Saatchi And I Am An Artoholic. Subtitled “Everything You Need To Know About Art, Ads, Life, God And Other Mysteries And Weren’t Afraid To Ask”, it presents Saatchi’s answers to a number of questions submitted by members of the public and journalists.

In July 2010, Charles Saatchi announced he would be donating the Saatchi Gallery and over 200 works of art to the British public.

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.

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 grabbing 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.