British artist Rob Munday has filed a lawsuit against Chris Levine, claiming he was the co-creator of two of Queen Elizabeth II’s most famous portraits –calm and lightness of being—Levine has considered it his own work for years.
The dispute, which was brought to the High Court, centers on a 2004 holographic portrait commissioned by the Jersey Heritage Trust. Munday accused Levine and his company, Sphere 9, of violating his moral rights by failing to list him as a co-author. The works, which are on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London, were created using holographic technology, which renders three-dimensional images through light projection and multiple cameras.
According to reviewed court documents guardianMundy claimed that Levine relied on his technical and artistic expertise to realize these portraits. “I’ve been going through this cycle for 20 years,” Munday, who started working with holography in the early 1980s, told us The Guardian. “It feels like you have to fight now or never.”
Levine owns the copyright to the work but has not yet entered a defense. In a statement, he rejected Mondy’s claims, calling him a “technical subcontractor” rather than an artistic partner. “Mr. Munday does not own any copyright calm or lightness of being“,” Levine said. “Any assertion of my rights will be vigorously defended.” This is my art. “
The portraits were commissioned to mark the 800th anniversary of Jersey’s pledge of allegiance to the British Crown. Mundy said the two reached an agreement in 2005 to acknowledge co-authorship, but Levine later violated that agreement.
The lawsuit follows another dispute last year between Levine and the Jersey Heritage Trust, which accused Levine of selling unlicensed reproductions of the portrait that could be worth millions of dollars. The case was settled in September, with a joint statement calling Levine “the only commissioned artist” and naming Munday as a collaborator.
Mundy said Levine posted and then deleted a message on Instagram after the settlement, which prompted him to file the lawsuit: “The facts prevail. I was the only artist commissioned and am now legally recognized as the sole author of the work.”
Levine studied at Chelsea College of Art and Central Saint Martins. lightness of beingdepicts the Queen with her eyes closed – an image that became a symbol of the tranquility and restraint of her reign. The portrait has been exhibited widely, including in a 2022 exhibition at Sotheby’s titled “Power and Image: Royal Portraits and Iconography.”
The case is ongoing.
