THE sound of elephant dung being thrown reverberated across the British art world yesterday as an indignant Charles Saatchi said that he had offered his £200 million collection as a gift to Tate Modern, but that the museum had turned him down.

A clearly wounded Mr Saatchi broke his usual silence to make a stinging attack on Sir Nicholas Serota, the Tate’s director, and to accuse the museum of being “disengaged” from the art community.

The controversial art collector, who is married to Nigella Lawson, the celebrity cook, said that Sir Nicholas had snubbed his offer to move his world- famous collection — including Chris Ofili’s Holy Virgin Mary made from elephant dung, Damien Hirst’s shark pickled in formaldehyde and Tracey Emin’s unmade bed — to the museum.

The advertising magnate used a rare interview to accuse the Tate of hosting “disappointing” exhibitions and said that it lacked “ambition”.

In a lofty discussion about “immortality”, Mr Saatchi said: “I did offer my collection to Nicholas Serota at the Tate last year. This was about the time I was struggling with the problems at County Hall — both the alarming behaviour of the Japanese landlords and my failure to get a grip on how to use the space well.

“I remembered that at the time Tate Modern opened, Nick had told me that there were new extensions planned that would add half again to the gallery capacity. But by the time I offered the collection to Nick, the Tate already had commitments for the extension.

“So I lost my chance for a tastefully engraved plaque and a 21-gun salute. And now the mood has passed and I’m happy not to have to visit Tate Modern, or its storage depot, to look at my art.” Mr Saatchi’s comments, in an interview with The Art Newspaper, are just the latest chapter in a long-running feud between the art collector and Sir Nicholas, the two most influential figures of “Brit Art”.

Last year Mr Saatchi dismissed the Turner Prize, exhibited at the Tate, as “pseudo-controversial rehashed claptrap”.

The Tate strongly denied last night that Mr Saatchi had offered his collection as a gift. Commentators in the art world said that the multimillionaire may have decided to stir up a high-profile row to increase interest in his new exhibition of contemporary painters, which opens in January. The Saatchi Gallery has failed to attract the number of visitors its owner had expected since it moved to the oak-panelled rooms of the former Greater London Council headquarters on the South Bank. Its most recent exhibitions have been mauled by critics.

Even before the opening of the County Hall gallery in April last year, many believed that Mr Saatchi had chosen an exhibition space as close as possible to Tate Modern, which is just a 15-minute walk along the Thames.

The Tate yesterday said in a statement: “Last year Charles Saatchi, then having difficulties with his landlord at County Hall, approached Nicholas Serota with the suggestion that he would like to move displays of his collection from County Hall to the derelict ‘oil tank’ spaces at Tate Modern. Nicholas Serota explained that these spaces could not be used without major expenditure.

“At no point was there any suggestion that the collection was being offered as a gift to Tate.

“Of course the offer of a gift of major works from Charles Saatchi’s collection would be a most generous gesture and would be much welcomed by Tate’s trustees. They have always made it clear that they would be very pleased to acquire, by gift or purchase, major works from the Saatchi collection.”

Referring sarcastically to Sir Nicholas as “my hero”, Mr Saatchi, who has been dismissed by Hirst as “childish”, said of the Tate: “The curators should get out more and see more studios and grassroots shows. They evidently lack an adventurous curatorial ambition . . . The Tate seems sadly disengaged from the young British art community. It ought to have reflected the energy and diversity of British art over the past 15 years in both its exhibitions and collecting policy. Puzzlingly, museums in Europe and the US are far more interested in examining Britain’s recent artistic achievements.”

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