Each of these works offers a different approach to representing everyday objects from the everyday world. While the paintings depict recognisably 'real' items like laundry, beer mugs and bananas, the collages bring fragments of the material world itself into the artworks. However, each artist tells a different story about our and their perception of the world, be it a commentary on the nature of representation, a desire to capture the lived experience of modern life, or the relationship between fine art and popular culture.

In this seemingly banal interior scene, Caulfield playfully demonstrates how no one method of representation within an artwork can claim to be more or less 'real' than another.  By combining a variety of different artistic techniques for portraying the three dimensional world in a two dimensional format, Caulfield enables us to explore the relationship between our notions of reality, artifice and illusion.  Interior with a Picture is a great example of Caulfield's signature painting style of flat bold colour surrounded by black outlines. Explore Interior with a Picture by Patrick Caufield.

In the The Uncertainty of the Poet, De Chirico transforms a simple view of a city square into an image of deep and disquieting mystery. This painting with its distant speeding train, unaccountable shadows, curious beheaded statue and incongruous pile of bananas, epitomizes many of the qualities that made De Chirico such an influential figure for the Surrealist movement. Painted in 1913 when the artist was only twenty-five, this work continues to fascinate viewers with its eerie stillness and inexplicable sense of menace. Explore The Uncertainty of the Poet by Giorgio de Chirico.

This striking painting was made in 1913, the same year that Goncharova and her partner Michel Larionov launched Rayonism on the Moscow art world. Rayonism synthesized ideas from Cubism and Italian Futurism such as the use of multiple viewpoints and interest in dynamic forms. Although only a short lived movement, this painting’s bold stencilled lettering, fractured forms and radical reinterpretation of a domestic still life, perfectly reflects the climate of artistic experimentation that took hold across Europe early last century. Explore Linen by Natalya Goncharova.

This bright and bold still life reflects Léger’s combined interests in the artistic revolutions brought about by Cubism, Futurism and the De Stijl movement, as well as the impact of new technology on early twentieth century society. Léger sought to make avant-garde art practice legible for everybody. In Still Life with a Beer Mug he created a painting that bursts with the same dynamic energy and movement that the man and woman in the street experienced in their daily lives. Explore Still Life with a Beer Mug by Fernand Léger.

This collage is a combination of commercial print matter, including the cover of a gossip magazine, advertising for Coca Cola and a gung-ho postcard of a fighter plane. Made in 1947, it signalled the start of British Pop Art and captures Britain’s post-war fascination with America and the affluent glamour it represented. Although seemingly haphazard, Paolozzi’s collection of cheap, disposable ephemera is a sharp commentary on the ubiquitous impact that popular culture and commercial imagery has on our visual sensibility. Explore I was a Rich Man's Plaything by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi.

The Handsome Pork Butcher wittily lampoons the conventions of traditional academic portrait painting. Rejecting grandiose settings and noble poses, this work was originally composed of household paint and sewing ephemera. Later Picabia substantially reworked the painting, creating a more complex image by superimposing a female face onto the original male portrait and replacing the variety of collage elements with just combs. Painted towards the end of his association with the Dada movement, this work demonstrates Picabia’s ability to combine artistic innovation with social satire. Explore The Handsome Pork Butcher by Francis Picabia.

After being declared a 'degenerate' artist by the Nazis, Kurt Schwitters was forced to leave his native Germany and live in Norway. This collage can be seen as a representation of this period of unrest and transition, combining paper ephemera collected at and around the point of his emigration. Customs stamps, scraps of German newspapers, pages from Norwegian books and an orange wrapper give us an insight into a life of the artist at a chaotic and unsettling time. Explore Opened by Customs by Kurt Schwitters .