Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse were considered leaders of modern art by critics.
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 . The leaders of the movement were Henri Matisse and André Derain . 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 .