The Queen Art & Image: National Portrait Gallery

Chris Levine’s portrait Lightness of Being formed the visual centrepiece of The Queen: Art and Image, a major exhibition organised by the National Portrait Gallery in London to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee .

The exhibition charted changing royal imagery over six decades but began and ended with Levine’s work - a 3D lenticular portrait of the Queen, captured during a peaceful, unscripted moment as Her Majesty rested between official poses . Originally commissioned by the Jersey Heritage Trust, the piece shared origin with the holographic portrait Equanimity (2004), but Lightness of Being emerged later from an outtake that Levine revisited after the sitting. In the final work, the Queen is depicted with her eyes gently closed — serene, reflective, and deeply human, wrapped in stillness and radiant light  . The National Portrait Gallery described it as “the most evocative image of a royal by any artist” .