Pablo Picasso was a painter.
Cubism is an early-20th-century art movement which brought European painting and sculpture historically forward toward 20th century Modern art . Fauvism is the style of les Fauves ( French for `` the wild beasts '' ) , 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 . Henri Matisse . He was a draughtsman , printmaker , and sculptor , but is known primarily as a painter . Matisse is commonly regarded , along with Pablo Picasso , as one of the artists who best helped to define the revolutionary developments in the visual arts throughout the opening decades of the twentieth century , responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture . Pablo Picasso . After 1906 , the Fauvist work of the slightly older artist Henri Matisse motivated Picasso to explore more radical styles , beginning a fruitful rivalry between the two artists , who subsequently were often paired by critics as the leaders of modern art .