Taking a first glance at the website is decently gratifying; with a relatively simple and clean-cut approach in it’s design, Saatchiart.com allows for even the most computer illiterate of the pack to be able to know where everything is (yes, including those that still type with one finger). The home page includes a menu directory consisting of: ‘Paintings’, ‘Photography’, ‘Drawings’, ‘Sculpture’, ‘Prints’, ‘Limited’, ‘Features’, ‘Blog’ and ‘Art Advisory’.
Right when you arrive at the home page, you’ll be greeted by an image that breaks down the art offered for sale by price point. Making it easy to purchase art within certain budgets makes this a great place to shop.
Under each menu heading, an easy to use descriptive sub-menu appears upon contact from your mouse pointer, elaborating in more detail upon the main menu subject. The website also includes an easy to use search bar located to the right of the main menu, for those who like to cut to the chase. After a main category has been selected, the user may proceed in selecting filtering options located at the left side of the screen. These sub filters include options such as selecting a range of ‘Style’, ‘Subject’, ‘Medium’, ‘Material’, ‘Price’, ‘Size’, ‘Orientation’, ‘Artist Country’ and last but not least, ‘Prints for Sale’. The website also includes any outstanding current promotions and deals at the top of page, if there are to be any at the time. At the bottom of the page, you will be able to find an assortment of customer reviews derived from ‘TRUSTPILOT’ in which at the time of this article, sum to 2,418 reviews.
Saatchiart.com also includes a large range of options to contact or follow their activity via most forms of social media platforms at the bottom of the page including: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and YouTube. If you would like to follow them more closely, then they also include the option to signup to their newsletter to “Discover new art and collections added weekly”, which is of course wonderful if you are obsessive about art and full of cash. For Apple users, the option to access their content on the fly is enabled via their Apple App linked at the bottom left of the page. Lastly, more info about the website and it’s operators is located at the bottom including ‘For Buyers’, ‘For Artists’, ‘About Us’, ‘Saatchi Art’ and ‘Top Categories’.
Overall, the website’s design is very informational, useful and won’t make you cry while looking at it; respectfully, the website is as artistic as it’s commodities.
About the Company
Founded in May 1st of 2006 by multi-millionaire art obsessed guru Charles Saatchi, Saatchi Online is dedicated to the distribution of “curator-selected” artists. While this is the case, Saatchi Online has also been pushing to lift off and support “up-and-coming artists” in more recent years. Saatchi Online, head-quartered in Los Angeles, California, is operated under it’s parent organization ‘Leaf Group’ and has remained very successful within the art industry to date. With the success, the recent augmentation of Saatchiart.com has become an important part of the entirety of operations within the ‘Saatchi Gallery’ located in Chelsea, London-UK. With over 1 million visitors in 2016 alone, it is needless to state the significance of Saatchi Gallery, with such stature, the incorporating website has played no-less than a large role in art distribution around the world.
The Founder
Charles Saatchi
Born 9 June 1943, Charles Saatchi, an Iraqi-British businessman, began his business ventures in the advertising industry during his earlier life; co-founding with his brother Maurice Saatchi the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. Alongside Saatchi’s advertising business ventures, he was an avid lover of the arts, known for his personal collections, sponsoring of the ‘Young British Artists (YBAs)’ and later, his gallery Saatchi Gallery. In 1969, at the age of 26, Saatchi bought his first piece of art by Sol LeWitt, a New York minimalist. From that point on, he only increased his involvement within the art world. During the 1980s, Saatchi purchased a 30,000 sq ft cement-floored and steel-girded warehouse at 98A Boundary Road within the residential London suburb of St. John’s Wood. He had then transformed the building into the Saatchi Gallery, which was then opened to the public in February 1985 to display the art that Saatchi had collected.
His appetite had changed from American abstraction and minimalism to the Young British Artists (YBAs), whose art he first observed at Goldsmith’s Art School. During the 1990 Gambler exhibition, he purchased Damian Hirst’s first major ‘animal’ piece, ‘A Thousand Years’. In 1991, he obtained pieces by Hirst and Marc Quinn, subsequently being an initial factor for launching their strong careers. His presence became a larger print when part of his collection was shown at the Royal Academy titled the Sensation, which went from Berlin to New York creating headlines and some negativity (e.g. to the families of children murdered by Myra Hindley, who was portrayed in one of the works), and solidifying the position of Hirst, Emin and other YBAs.
The Saatchi Gallery has been featured in a list of the most visited art museums in the world, derived from an attendance survey in 2014, compiled by The Art Newspaper, summing to 1,505,608 visitors. Within the same survey, the gallery has been shown to have hosted 15 of the 20 most visited exhibitions inside London over the last 5 years.
What is Sold on Saatchiart.com
Given the role of the website as an augmentation to the Saatchi Gallery, the site includes art submitted by freelancer artists; with all of these pieces, the option to purchase “prints” rather than the original copies at a significantly reduced price is a very convenient addition to the not-so-deep-pocketed art nerds looking to brighten up their living quarters. As stated above, the website also works as a direct-to-consumer medium between artists and their respective fans. Looking to explore more artwork, one will not be disappointed by any means considering the vastness of selections available on the website. Artists from all over the world are able to sign and sell on Saatchiart.com. Scamming is of no concern, considering the in-depth signup process that Saatchiart.com make their artists go through.
Price Ranges
Being as prominent and prestigious as Saatchi art is, a significant price tag must naturally follow such a unique commodity that is art; and art that is from such a filtered and reviewed source. Prices for physical original pieces of artwork usually sore well above the thousand-dollar mark. Albeit, as stated before, the option to purchase a non-original copy or “print” reduces the cost to a much lower $80-$200 range.
For the most part, if you are not made of green, then you should steer elsewhere from Saatchiart.com. However, if you are indeed the owner of a large wallet and a lover of the fine arts, then there is not much more opportunity elsewhere to obtain the best of the best within the realm of the eye-pleasing industry.
Customer Reviews
As stated earlier, reviews can be accessed via the website’s directory, which will point you towards submissions within Trustpilot. However, Trustpilot has been noted on several occasions to be biased at times, including deleting negative reviews based upon their own discretions and reasoning. That being said, one cannot dismiss all of the overwhelming positive reviews of Saatchiart.com. Presented with the websites notable history and company information, it should be safe to assume that you will receive service equivalent to any other multi-million-dollar corporation. From a buyer’s standpoint, the reviews remain supportive of a satisfying customer experience amongst their services, however, after some investigations into reviews, there have been artists elaborating on negative cases with their involvement in the Saatchi Online’s artist program. Including but not limited to not receiving payments or including complications with signups. On the flip side, their have been artists that have professed to the website’s significance in their careers. As one would imagine, there are a lot of people who douse onto art within the website, which of course increases the possibility of gaining a sell. At the end of it, there are no alarming reviews in which are any case of concern if you are considering purchasing or becoming an artist with Saatchi Online.
Is the Website for You?
If you live and breathe artwork, Saatchiart.com is not to be dismissed. Though the price ranges can sore in the clouds, the affordability factor is not neglected with their options to purchase prints. Overall, any art enthusiast would have this website at the tip of their tongue when presented with an inquiry on which online outlet to visit for beautiful artwork. Given the nature of the company’s success, standards and history, one can be assured that the pieces available will be selected rigorously as to be highly appealing. If you are an artist, then you would be mistaken to dismiss the potential possibilities that may be unveiled by using the website’s services. Whatever your decision may be, it wouldn’t hurt to give saatchiart.com a test run.