'AbFab' for art at Harvey Nicks

The Sloane Street department store Harvey Nichols is to pioneer what it believes is an absolutely fabulous idea for revolutionising the way art is sold in Britain.

Plans are being drawn up for an "art supermarket"- to be sited on the fifth floor near the restaurant and food hall - offering more than 3,000 original works of art at under pounds 300.

The concept is borrowed from Spain, where one of Barcelona's most stylish department stores, Vincon, has run a flourishing art supermarket for six years. Such is the speed and size of turnover of the paintings that the prices they sell for in galleries can be halved.

Harvey Nichols - brought into popular consciousness as the favourite haunt of Edina and Patsy in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous - opens its artmart on a trial basis on 18 September, and it will keep it open until the end of October. The works, unframed to keep prices down, will be in racks for customers to leaf through them and take their selections to the till, just as in poster shops.

The scheme is the brainchild of James West, a former Reuters executive, who runs an art gallery from his home in Islington, north London. He was struck by the success of the Spanish art supermarkets, which have gone from selling 300 paintings a year to 8,000 since the late 1980s.

"There seems to be a hang up sometimes about the way we approach art," he said. "No one has a problem about going to see a film and having an opinion about it. But we put obstacles in the way by the rather cold and frigid way we sell art."

After discussions with organisers of the Spanish supermarkets, he wrote a report detailing how the concept could work in Britain and sent it to the Saatchis, Sir Terence Conran, Richard Branson and Harvey Nichols.

Harvey Nichols took up the idea enthusiastically. "Not only is it a wonderful opportunity for people to purchase really good works of art at extremely good prices, but also a wonderful, quirky and fun way of presenting art," says Mary Portas, the store's marketing director.

The art supermarket will feature 50 artists from nine European countries. Although none is likely to be known to the general public, they are almost entirely well established, with gallery representation and at least five years' experience.

"I don't see why this shouldn't become the normal mode by which people buy art," said Mr West.