UK's Royal Opera House plans to sell painting of ex-boss for funds amid COVID-19 crisis

The Royal Opera House of the United Kingdom plans to sell the painting of its former chief David Webster in order to raise funds over the COVID-19 induced financial crisis that has hit the company hard in the past several months. According to the Observer newspaper, the painting by David Hockney will be auctioned on October 22 by Christie's auction house and is expected to fetch the iconic opera company somewhere between £11 million and £18 million. 

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COVID-19 lockdown & reopening

The Royal Opera House shut down its doors in March this year after the British government imposed a lockdown across the country to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The opera house reopened in June without live audiences. It started live-streaming the shows for audiences from all over the world but only after cutting costs to bear the financial losses incurred during the lockdown. With the auction of the painting of its former chief, the Royal Opera House aims to return to normalcy again. 

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The opera house is also running a donation campaign on its website as part of its recovery plan. The company has lost more than half its income in the past few months and describes it as the "biggest crisis" it has faced since its inception in 1946. "We have lost £3 in every £5 of our income, and any Government loan will take us only part of the way. We need your help to bring artists back to our stages," the company said on its website. 

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David Webster was the chief executive of the Royal Opera House from 1945 to 1970, who made the Royal Opera world-famous. While David Webster is an English painter, who is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century. He greatly contributed to the pop art movement in the 1960s. In 2018, Hockney's 1972 artwork sold at Christie's auction fetched more than $90 million making it the most expensive artwork by a living artist until 2019 when Jeff Koons reclaimed the title from him. 

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