Charles Saatchi donates the Saatchi Gallery to the nation.
Advertising big-shot and mega-rich art collector Charles Saatchi has announced that the Saatchi Gallery will be donated to the nation. The 70,000 square foot gallery space just off the King's Road in Chelsea will be renamed the Museum of Contemporary Art, and along with 200 works of art, is worth around £25 million. It remains unclear exactly how the gallery will continue to operate, but it is nonetheless an extraordinarily generous act.
Alongside his brother Maurice, Saatchi made his fortune as co-founder of global advertising agencies Saatchi & Saatchi and M&C Saatchi. In the late 1980s and '90s Saatchi practically single-handedly spearheaded the meteoric rise of the YBAs – most notably Damien Hirst, the Chapman Brothers and Tracey Emin, whose controversial unmade bed, My Bed, is just one of the 200 works of contemporary art included in the gift. Also included are the management and staff of the gallery as well as revenues from the shop, restaurant and café.
Secretary of State for Culture, Jeremy Hunt said "Charles Saatchi has built up a collection of huge international importance. His decision to gift these works to the nation is an act of incredible generosity and I'd like to thank him on behalf of the Government. Philanthropy is central to our vision of a thriving cultural sector and this is an outstanding example of how Britain can benefit from individual acts of social responsibility."
But others have been less enthusiastic. Writing in the Guardian, Adrian Searle said “Exhibitions at the Saatchi Gallery are invariably incoherent: the work he shows can be spectacular, but alongside the good there is plenty that is bad or mediocre. We don't even know what art Saatchi currently owns, or what he is giving to the nation.... what does it mean to "continue the same policy that was established when the gallery began 25 years ago", as the press release has it? The truth is that there never was any policy. In the end, there is only Charles Saatchi: his enthusiasms and, now, his generosity."
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