Your name on the Tate, for a mere pounds 50m

The Tate Gallery yesterday offered a bargain to people looking for glory in the next millennium: your surname on the Bankside Tate in return for pounds 50m toward its pounds 100m cost.

Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate, said that half the cost of creating the gallery on the site of Bankside power station in central London would come from the Millennium Commission, if it agrees to fund the project later this year. The Tate is also negotiating with four private donors able to put up to pounds 15m each into the project. But such a sum would not be enough to get their names over the door.

Mr Serota admitted: "If someone comes up to us and says, 'Here is pounds 50m,' and we can ally their name with the word 'Tate', we will do it. But not for less than that."

His argument for lottery funds from the Millennium Commission was boosted yesterday by a report claiming that the Bankside Tate would create up to 2,400 jobs and bring up to pounds 90m to London.

The study by the management consultants McKinsey argues that it would create an outstanding public space to attract the blockbuster exhibitions Britain has missed in the past, such as the Matisse show that went to New York and Paris three years ago.

It would attract more than 2 million visitors each year, slightly more than the original Tate at Millbank or St Paul's Cathedral.