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David Hockney’s Portrait of Sir David Webster comes up at Christie’s Post War and Contemporary evening auction on October 22. Estimated at £11-18 million it is being sold to raise funds for London’s Royal Opera House. Sir David is the former general administrator of the ROH. Painted in 1971, it depicts Webster in the artist’s studio sitting on a Mies van der Rohe ‘MR’ chair before a glass table. The painting is being offered by the ROH and proceeds will contribute toward funding required to alleviate the financial impact of coronavirus, the most serious crisis the organisation has had to face.

From 1975 until 1992, David Hockney would design sets for venues including Glyndebourne, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Royal Opera House. Inviting stylistic comparison with Hockney’s landmark double portraits produced between 1968 and 1975, Portrait of Sir David Webster demonstrates the meticulous exploration of space, perspective, lighting and compositional drama that would eventually come to inform his theatrical endeavours.