Paintings By The Numbers

In Charles Saatchi’s life, even when he’s collecting art, the situation eventually becomes focused on hype. Now a disgruntled British artist is accusing him of monopolizing the London art market by employing the same acquisitive habits he once used in building an advertising empire.

Charles Thomson, a member of the Stuckist art movement, recently reported Saatchi to the U.K. Office of Fair Trading. (The group, which advocates “new figurative painting with ideas,” was so named by conceptual artist Tracy Emin, who thinks they’re “stuck” in the past.)