Controversies
In December 2005, Serota admitted that he had filled in with false information an application form to the Art Fund (NACF) for a £75,000 grant towards buying the work, stating that the Tate had made no commitment to purchase the work (a requirement of the grant), whereas they had in fact already paid a first instalment of £250,000 several months previously. He attributed this to "a failing in his head". The NACF allowed the Tate to keep the grant.
In 2006, the Charity Commission ruled the Tate had broken charity law (but not the criminal law) over the purchase and similar trustee purchases, including ones made before Serota's Directorship. The Daily Telegraph called the verdict "one of the most serious indictments of the running of one of the nation's major cultural institutions in living memory." In April 2008, Thomson started a petition on the Prime Minister's web site against Serota's Tate directorship.
Read more about this topic: Nicholas Serota