Eddie Saunders was exhibiting a shark — which he caught — in his East London shop window two years before Hirst’s work was first shown in the Saatchi Gallery, in northwest London.

Now an international group of painters, which campaigns for traditional artistry, is taking on the conceptualists by displaying Mr Saunders’s shark in its own gallery just as Mr Saatchi is giving pride of place to Hirst’s in his new gallery. The 148kg (325lb) golden hammerhead shark will go on show in the Stuckism International Gallery in East London on April 17, the day that the Saatchi Gallery opens at County Hall on the South Bank.

The Stuckists’ shark was caught off Florida by Mr Saunders in 1989 and has been on display in his shop in Shoreditch ever since.

Charles Thomson, of the Stuckists, who mock the conceptualists’ reliance on shallow gimmickry and shock tactics, said: “If Hirst’s shark is recognised as great art, then how come Eddie’s, which was on exhibition for two years beforehand, isn’t? “Do we perhaps have here an undiscovered artist of genius, who got there first, or is it that a dead shark isn’t art at all? Not only did Eddie catch it himself — unlike Hirst — but it is also in considerably better condition.

“We can’t see why Hirst’s shark was made so much fuss of when Eddie’s has been in a public London venue all this time. A lot of people admired it in his shop, but I doubt that anyone considered it a work of artistic genius.”

The Stuckists were founded in London in 1999 by Thomson and Billy Childish. They took their name from Tracey Emin, who made her name with a stained bed and told a former boyfriend that his work was “stuck, stuck, stuck”. Last year they opened a four-storey Victorian gallery in Hoxton, East London, 70 yards from the White Cube, which represents Hirst and Emin.

There are now five Stuckist centres and 60 groups around the world. From April 17 to May 7 the London gallery will also show paintings that it describes as “real art”.

The Saatchi Gallery’s new premises will open with a retrospective of works by Hirst, including some from Mr Saatchi’s collection that have not been seen before.

Other exhibits include Marc Quinn’s Self, in which he filled a mould of his head with his own blood, and Marcus Harvey’s portrait of the Moors murderer, Myra Hindley, made out of children’s handprints.

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