THE ALL Too Human exhibition currently on at Tate Britain in London celebrates painters in this country who strove to communicate intimate relationships between human subjects and their surroundings.

Alongside works by Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, rarely seen paintings from their contemporaries, including Frank Auerbach and Paula Rego, are on show, with canvases from Walter Sickert to David Bomberg expressing the tangible reality of life through paint.

While the focus is mainly on male artists, the inclusion of work by Paula Rego is an opportunity to view some of her brilliantly executed canvases with their disturbing narratives of strong women in sometimes nightmarish situations, whether domestic or political.

Rego often draws on folk tales and work by the Old Masters to construct stories on canvas which depict women as animalistic, “unfeminine” or brutal.

Imbued with a distinctly feminist and anti-authoritarian outlook, they are unflinching depictions of real women in the real world, rather than idealised representations reflecting the male gaze.

All Too Human: Bacon, Freud and a Century of Painting Life runs at Tate Britain until August 27, box office: tate.org.uk