Artist
sues for co-author credit on Chris Levine’s queen portraits
Exclusive:
Ben Munday claims he is co-creator of 2004 images but Levine has called him
only a collaborator
Lanre
Bakare Arts and culture correspondent
Fri 24
Oct 2025 07.00 BST
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.
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