The Daily Telegraph

A young artist sneaked his own painting into the first day of a new Charles Saatchi exhibition yesterday, hoping to pass it off as a work acquired by Britain's biggest collector.

But within half an hour an attendant noticed British Painting Still Rocks propped on a mantelpiece at the Saatchi Gallery in London and it was consigned to a storeroom.

Stuart Semple said he was making a "Buy British" protest at the "appalling" way the multi-millionaire collector had bought works by young British artists, made money from them, then ignored them.

He said his painting, which took him two hours to do on Monday, was a gift to Mr Saatchi. On the back he wrote: "For Charles. With all my love, Stuart."

Mr Saatchi's spokesman said: "Charles is very grateful but he has no plans to show the painting. The artist can collect it any time."

The target of Semple's wrath was The Triumph of Painting Part II exhibition. Although Mr Saatchi made his name - and those of many artists such as Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin - by buying British, he said recently that the Young British Artists movement might become no more than a footnote in history.

(Stuart Semple)

His latest exhibition contains works by five German and one Polish artist. It is his first without a British artist since 1987.

Semple said: "There are more artists working in east London today than there were in Renaissance Italy but he doesn't seem interested."