An artist who claims he is a co-creator of two of the most famous images ever taken of the late queen is suing Chris Levine, the photographer who claims sole authorship of the portraits, in a high court dispute.
Ben Munday claims he is a co-author of two 2004 portraits of the queen that were created using holography technology, which involves the use of light projection and multiple cameras to render a 3D image.
In a court filing seen by the Guardian, Munday alleges Levine and his company Sphere 9 breached his moral rights over the works, titled Equanimity and Lightness of Being, which are both in the permanent collection at the National Portrait Gallery.
Levine, who shares copyright of the works, has not yet filed a defence to Munday’s claims. It is the first time Munday has taken legal action.
Taken in two sittings in late 2003 and early 2004, the images are arguably the most distinctive portraits of the monarch. They have been shown in some of the UK’s most prestigious art galleries.
Munday said he was trying to be legally recognised as a joint artist with Levine, who he claims came to him because Levine could not have created the holographic image without his expertise.
“I’ve been going through this cycle for 20 years,” said Munday, who trained in holography after graduating from college in the early 1980s. “I’m not young any more; it felt like this had to be fought now or never.”
The images were commissioned by the Jersey Heritage Trust to mark the 800th anniversary of the self-governing dependency of the UK pledging allegiance to the English crown.
Munday claims he and Levine, in conjunction with the trust, came to a settlement in 2005 about authorship of the portraits but that Levine has since breached that.
The trust sued Levine in July 2024 for alleged breach of contract and copyright and claimed the artist owed it money from sales of allegedly unlicensed copies of the portraits, potentially worth millions.
The parties settled out of court in September this year and said in a joint statement: “The parties acknowledge that Chris Levine was the sole artist commissioned by the Jersey Heritage Trust to create the portrait and both parties remain incredibly proud of the creative collaboration between artist Chris Levine, holographer Robert Munday of UK Company Spatial Imaging, Jeffrey Robb also of UK Company Spatial Imaging and Dr John Perry (USA) which resulted in the groundbreaking and iconic portrait of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II titled Equanimity.”
Munday said he decided to take legal action after Levine posted a statement on Instagram after the settlement with the trust. “Truth prevailed,” Levine wrote in a post that has now been deleted. “I was the sole artist commissioned and am now legally recognised as the sole author of the work.”
While the joint statement named Munday, it called him a collaborator and not a co-creator of the portrait. He is seeking to be named as a co-author of the works and for Levine to publicly state they created the portraits together.
Levine said: “Mr Munday does not hold any copyright in Equanimity or Lightness of Being. Jersey Heritage Trust, who commissioned the work, have publicly confirmed that I was the sole commissioned artist.”
He referred to Munday as “a technical subcontractor” hired to assist in production “as part of my team, not as an artistic partner”.
He added: “Extraordinarily, as yet no details have been provided to me or my lawyers, and while I will not comment further on ongoing legal proceedings, I am confident that the facts, witnessed by all involved, will once again speak for themselves. This is an ongoing attempt to rewrite history and the motives are obvious. Any claim on my rights will be fiercely defended. This is my art.”
Levine, who studied graphic design at Chelsea School of Art and computer graphics at Central Saint Martins School of Art, told the Guardian in 2009 that he did not consider himself a photographer. “I’m an artist who works with light and who uses photography in his projects,” he said.
Levine’s forthcoming monograph Inner Light: The Portraiture of Chris Levine uses the Lightness of Being on the cover and in the 2009 Guardian interview he picked the portrait as his best shot.
It was included in Sotheby’s show Power & Image: Royal Portraiture & Iconography in 2022 alongside seven portraits of different queens.
