Charles Saatchi, the London-based advertising magnate whose voracious collecting jump-started the U.K. art scene in the 1990s, has announced that he is giving his world-renowned Saatchi Gallery to Britain to create a new MOCA London. The museum, which would come into being at the point of Saatchi's retirement, will have a collection of some 200 of his artworks — including such provocative YBA centerpieces as Tracey Emin's notorious bodily-fluids-stained My Bed and the Chapman Brothers' installation Tragic Anatomies.

While Saatchi, now 67, has not stated when he plans to retire, he has "begun putting plans in place" to step down as the head of the gallery, according to spokeswoman Rachel Duffield. At that point the artworks slated for the museum — said to be worth £25 million ($37.5 million) — will be overseen by Saatchi Gallery director and chief executive Nigel Hurst along with the rest of the gallery staff, who will become MOCA London's administrators. The future museum's full collection will be unveiled in a trio of shows filling the gallery in 2012, timed to coincide with London's Olympic Games.

Saatchi, an Iraq-born collector who opened his first gallery in North London in 1985, has over the years amassed one of the world's most prominent holdings of contemporary art, focusing largely on the YBA movement — which he introduced to the world through the traveling 1997 "Sensation" show — but also artists in China, India, and other emerging markets whose work will be included in the gift. A buyer in bulk who is known to purchase art that he's seen only in digital photographs, Saatchi has been an enormous force in the art market, often flipping works at auction.

The Saatchi Gallery currently has an expansive headquarters in London's Duke of York Square, and Saatchi has indicated that he hopes the planned MOCA will occupy the same space — though "if for some reason they can't stay in that building they'll move to another location," Duffield said. Like the Saatchi Gallery, the museum would offer free admission, and it would continue to be funded through existing sponsorships from companies like Google, Audi, and Deutsche Bank. No endowment has been announced, but according to a statement the museum will receive a number of pieces that it will be able to "trade, using the revenues to acquire new works."
 
Saatchi is still in talks with the British government to determine which national body would officially own the works, according to the statement, which adds that the government will be able to lend the works when they are not being exhibited.