The modern world was a theme addressed by many artists in the early twentieth century. The city seemed to epitomise modernity: a cosmopolitan, noisy place of crowded streets, continually changing architecture and fast, mechanised transport. There were also new forms of mass entertainment, such as music halls and cinemas. Travel was more popular and the seaside became a place of pleasure.

Artists were especially interested in the impact of this modern world on the human figure. Walter Sickert advocated an art that was realistic, not idealistic, and engaged in the life of the city. He and his followers in the Camden Town school painted streets, markets, music halls and the squalid interiors of the city's poor. Other artists drew on the art of early and non-western cultures. Their figures often appear as if governed by natural passions and take on an erotic undertone.

Wyndham Lewis and his Vorticist group saw the artist at the still centre of the vortex of modern life. To Lewis and David Bomberg, individuals seemed to be components in the machinery of the city. For many, the brutalising effects of the First World War confirmed this view of modernity.

This display has been devised by curator Chris Stephens

BP British Art Displays 1500-2006