Hundreds of photographs, including many history-making images, are to be displayed in a new exhibition at the National Media Museum in Bradford.

Called Art of Arrangement, the exhibition will feature both classic examples and works that challenge the definition of the “still life” genre.

The exhibition, which will feature work by some of the most celebrated practitioners of photography, will look at how the form developed throughout centuries of painting and visual art to inspire photographers.

Greg Hobson, the museum’s curator of photographs, said: “Art of Arrangement looks at the traditional conventions of still life as a starting point, but then expands these with unexpected twists found throughout the history of photography.

“We are displaying more than 100 photographs from the National Media Museum collection, from the 1840s to notable contemporary examples.

“Many photographers have explored still life and numerous classic images are included in this exhibition, but we also hope to surprise people with works that have tapped into the conventions of the genre, perhaps without realising it.”

Alongside traditional still lifes in paintings and photographs, the exhibition will exhibit works from photojournalism, documentary, advertising, portraiture, fashion photography and contemporary art installations.

Included in the exhibition, which runs from Saturday, November 17, to Sunday, February 10, are more than 100 works by photographers such as William Henry Fox Talbot, Dorothea Lange, Edward Steichen, Madame Yevonde, Roger Fenton, Don McCullin and James Jarché.

WHF Talbot’s Insect Wings, as seen in a Solar Microscope (c.1840), which is the earliest photograph in the exhibition, will be presented alongside modern interpretations of the still life genre.

Frederick G Tutton’s Dessert (1923), an homage to still life painting, is also a stunning example of early colour photography.

The self-explanatory title of Frederick Bond’s Contents of an Ostrich’s Stomach (1930) shows a board holding a number of objects. The reverse of the photograph lists the items pictured, which include: ‘3 Odd cotton gloves… wooden centre of silk spool…part of bicycle valve… metal backed’ comb…1¼ inch nail - This had caused death by perforating crop’.

Present-day artists whose works are displayed include Chris Killip, Jem Southam, Hannah Starkey, Taryn Simon, Simon Norfolk, Luc Delahaye, Sarah Jones and Ori Gersht.

Gersht’s Pomegranate (2006), a film of a bullet passing through the fruit, is influenced both by the painting, Quince Cabbage Melon and Cucumber (1602) by Juan Sanches Cotan, and Harold Edgerton’s stroboscopic photography.

To find out more, visit national mediamuseum.org.uk