Claim: Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse were considered leaders of modern art by critics.

Fauvism is the style of les Fauves -LRB- French for `` the wild beasts '' -RRB- , a loose group of early twentieth-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong color over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism . While Fauvism as a style began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910 , the movement as such lasted only a few years , 1904 -- 1908 , and had three exhibitions . The leaders of the movement were Henri Matisse and André Derain .