Secret lives: The Artist's Studio at Compton Verney

The Artist's Studio (c1716) by Peter Tillemans. Exhibition curator Giles Waterfield says: 'For centuries people have taken the studio as a faithful reflection of the soul of the artist – but my question is: is it really?' Photograph: Norwich Castle museum and art gallery

The Artist in His Studio and His Man Gibbs (c1802) by George Morland shows Morland at work on an idyllic landscape while his servant cooks sausages over the open fire in a squalid room. Morland died of alcoholism two years after completing the painting Photograph: Nottingham City Museums and Galleries

Interior of a Studio (1845) by Octave Tassaert is 'a beautiful lie', says Maev Kennedy – when Tassaert painted himself as a boy huddled over an icy fire in his painter's garret, he was a 45-year-old disappointed artist Photograph: The Bridgeman Art Library

The Sleeping Model by William Powell Frith (1853). The Victorian-era Strand magazine described artists' studios as 'The sacred place ... of a secret society, whose talk is a mosaic puzzle to the uninitiated – a laboratory in which ideas are melted down and boiled up and turned out on canvas by magic' Photograph: Royal Academy of Arts

A Studio in Montparnasse (1926) by Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson. For this painting, Nevinson borrowed the studio of a friend – who was annoyed by its louche portrayal Photograph: Tate

Edward Bawden Working in His Studio by Eric Ravilious (1929). The depiction of this studio, with its ornate furnishings and swags of velvet, looks back to the elegant workspaces painted by society artists of the 18th century Photograph: Royal College of Art collection/Estate of Eric Ravilious

The Shelf: Objects and Shadows, Front View (1982–83) by Rodrigo Moynihan. Even the simplest images of studios are often as carefully constructed as stage sets, finds Maev Kennedy Photograph: Tate

7 Reece Mews, Francis Bacon's Studio, photographed by Perry Ogden. The photograph shows Bacon's littered studio in London, 'precisely matching the image of a haunted genius', says Kennedy Photograph: Perry Ogden/Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane, The estate of Francis Bacon

Studiolo (Painter Man) by Mark Fernington (2009) – a new work commissioned for the exhibition Photograph: The artist

Lucian Freud and Leigh Bowery imitating the poses of artist and model in Courbet's The Painter's Studio, photographed by Bruce Bernard. Freud insisted there was nothing special about his studio, but in fact it is 'a meticulously constructed space with almost surreal features including walls layered in impasto where he wipes his brushes,' says Kennedy Photograph: Estate of Bruce Bernard

Antony Gormley's studio, photographed by Gautier Deblonde. From austere minimalism to debauched luxury, the exhibition surveys 'almost every popular cliche about what artists get up to behind the closed doors of their studios,' says Kennedy Photograph: Gautier Deblonde/nbpictures