Saatchi's £250,000 sculpture gift

The millionaire art collector Charles Saatchi gave modern sculptures worth an estimated £250,000 to the British public yesterday, via the Arts Council.

In his second round of benevolence within four years, the advertising guru announced he would hand over 34 works by 18 British artists active in the 1990s.

The sculptures - which include a full-size caravan giving birth to a trailer and a model of teeth with Dracula-sized fangs - are to go to the Arts Council Collection. Next June they will join nearly 500 other works at the new Yorkshire Sculpture Park near Wakefield. Many are expected to be lent for show in galleries all over Britain and abroad.

In early 1999 Saatchi gave 100 pieces by 64 young British artists to the collection. That gift, calculated to be worth £500,000, was welcomed as adding new gold dust to his reputation as the art world's fairy godmother, although analysts noted that none of the works was a topseller.

Yesterday's bounty brought him gratitude and admiration. It includes John Frankland's Untitled Shed, 1994, a full-size lacquered shed inside another shed; Siobhan Hapaska's Far, 1995, described as an opalescent fibreglass cloud; Marc Quinn's I Need an Axe to Break the Ice, 1992, a latex balloon cocooned in glass; Richard Wilson's Facelift, 1991, showing the caravan and trailer; and Gary Webb's Lovers, 1998, two Cupid's arrows in a broken ring with tips of red fletching.

The fangs, made of dental acrylic, are in Jordan Baseman's sculpture entitled Based on Actual Events, 1995.

Susan Brades, director of the Hayward Gallery which runs the collection, said the gift was a mix of well-known, respected artists such as Wilson and Quinn and "very hot, up and coming people" such as Webb.

This reflected the traditions of the collection in spotting talent for the future. It had been buying Francis Bacon in the 1950s and David Hockney in the early 1960s.

Marjorie Allthorpe-Guyton, Arts Council visual arts director, said: "Charles Saatchi has done more than almost any other art patron to introduce the work of young British artists to a wider public.

"His second gift is especially welcome. It brings a new perspective to the 1990s artists represented in the collection".

Saatchi said his act would "give these artists a chance to be seen more widely across the country.

"I greatly admire the Arts Council Collection's ongoing support over the years for young artists.

"No institution does more than the Hayward Gallery on the council's behalf to make contemporary art accessible through national touring exhibitions and loans to galleries and museums."

The council chairman, Gerry Robinson, said: "Some of these artists have been shown abroad and are already international names. Now their work can be seen at home."