Painting modern life

Richard Hamilton, Swingeing London 67, 1968-9, © Richard Hamilton/all rights reserved, DACS 2007, © Tate, London 2007
The Painting of Modern Life, a new exhibition that opened this week at the Hayward Gallery in London, is ostensibly about the way that painters over the last 50 years have depicted everyday life, but it also tackles the medium’s complex and intriguing relationship with photography.