Its director, Sir Nicholas Serota, said that the works did not deserve to be in a national collection, even though their five-month exhibition last autumn drew thousands of people to the Walker, one of the outstanding collections of fine art in Europe and part of National Museums Liverpool.

The works were painted by the Stuckists, an international group of artists founded in 1999 to promote traditional artistry, looking to the Old Masters for inspiration. Experts said that the artists had “inaugurated the rebirth of spirituality and meaning in art, culture and society”, with their works worth £500,000, but the Tate was less than impressed.

Sir Nicholas wrote to the Stuckists, who offered the gift: “We do not feel that the work is of sufficient quality in terms of accomplishment, innovation or originality of thought to warrant preservation in perpetuity in the national collection.”

Charles Thomson, co-founder of the Stuckists, called the decision “a massive snub”. Noting the exhibition’s success, he added: “It shows the Tate is completely out of line with the rest of the country and the public, whose money it spends on things the public don’t want.”

He recalled how the Contemporary Art Society, the art charity, had difficulty persuading the Tate to take a Picasso in the 1920s and a Henry Moore in the 1930s. “The Tate . . . rejected Modernism and artists such as Matisse and Picasso . . . Now it has lost the nation the prime works of an international movement founded in Britain.”

Mocking the decision to award the Turner Prize to Martin Creed — “someone who switches a light on and off in an empty room” — he also poked fun at recently acquired canvases studded with elephant dung by Chris Ofili. “Excreta seems particularly welcome,” he said.

The Stuckists were confused by a passage in Sir Nicholas’s letter which said that he wanted to ensure “the Tate archive, as the national record of art in Britain, properly represents the contribution of the Stuckist movement to debates about contemporary art in recent years.” Mr Thomson said: “He wants to record our thoughts, to hear what we are saying, but will not allow the public to see our work.”

CHILDISH TAUNT

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