Evening Standard - July 2005

ARTIST SNEAKS WORK INTO EXHIBITION WHICH SHUNS HOMEGROWN TALENT

An artist sneaked a painting into the Saatchi Gallery to protest about the absence of British artists in a show which opened today.

Stuart Semple, 24, has installed a canvas with the words British Painting Still Rocks into the London gallery.

He has been angered by the fact that the new exhibition, The Triumph of Painting: Part Two, shuns homegrown artists in favor of Germans.

Semple managed to avoid security and install his 29ins by 29ins protest canvas in a room containing work by Polish painter Wilhelm Sasnal. He said: "I've spoken to a lot of british painters and the find the fact that British talent has been left out of this new show very offensive. There is a whole wealth of amazing young British talent out there. Leaving it out is very wrong."

Mr Saatchi has been a collector and exhibitor of British artists for 15 years.

He said last year that he had decided to champion the more traditional medium of painting, and this latest show contains work by one Polish and five German artists. The multi-millionaire collector has sold many favorites from the Brit Art movement of the Nineties and reportedly told The Art Newspaper that the Young British Artists who made their name during the time may be "nothing but footnotes" in art history.

Semple, who last year made a memorial work from £10 million worth of British art destroyed in the Momart fire, said "It's really strange that Saatchi has patronised a generation of british artists and is now turning his back on it. Saatchi has so much clout. To leave out British artists is outrageous. There are more artists working in East london today then there were in Renaissance Italy".

A spokesman for the collector said: "Charles Saatchi remains dedicated to british art. This is a one-off show in which he focuses on a current favorite - German artists. That's not to say he is not deeply interested in the british art scene".