LONDON.-A new partnership between the Saatchi Gallery and leading contemporary art auction house Phillips de Pury & Company was announced today that will allow the Saatchi Gallery to be the first completely free major contemporary art museum in the world. All visitors to the new Saatchi Gallery, when it opens its new premises at Duke of York's HQ in Chelsea, will now not be charged admission to any of the Gallery's exhibitions, including its changing programme of curated shows.

The Saatchi Gallery's role is to bring very contemporary art to a wider audience and Phillips de Pury & Company's involvement will enable a far larger cross-section of the public to visit the Saatchi Gallery's exhibitions than ever before. It is conservatively estimated that attendance will grow from 600,000 to well over 1 million visitors a year. It is also anticipated that the number of schools organizing group visits for their students will greatly increase from the current 1,350 a year.

The opening of the new Saatchi Gallery on King's Road is now scheduled for early 2008 in order to allow the creation of a further 20,000 square feet of space on the top floor of the gallery. This building work will create 70,000 square feet of exhibition space making the Saatchi Gallery one of the largest museums in the world devoted to showing contemporary art.

The Saatchi Gallery's and Phillips de Pury & Company's interactive websites will link to create a unique source of information for a global art audience. The Saatchi Gallery online now has 60,000 artists and art students from across the world displaying their art on the site which receives 40 million plus hits a day. The new Phillips de Pury website offers an interactive Q&A guideline for art collectors to navigate the contemporary art market.

Phillips de Pury & Company is a leading art company with headquarters in New York's Meatpacking District and soon-to-open London at Howick Place, Victoria, specializing in the sale of cutting-edge high-quality contemporary art, design, photographs and jewelry. In the past 4 years, since its inception, Phillips de Pury & Company has become an integral part of the New York contemporary art scene focusing its selling activity in four main areas: auctions, private sales, building private collections and holding selling exhibitions for living artists, designers, photographers and jewelry designers. The company's remit is to offer work by established contemporary masters and emerging artists and engage both the experienced and the newer collectors with the best the contemporary art market has to offer. Simon de Pury, the company's chairman and principal auctioneer is known for his long-standing knowledge and passion for Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary Art as well as his legendary style as an auctioneer at the podium. Phillips de Pury & Company will stage a contemporary art auction during Frieze with an evening sale on October 13, 2007. This sale will mark the opening of the company's new headquarters at Howick Place, Victoria, London.