Henri Matisse and the Fauves

Georges Braque, The Port of La Ciotat, 1907, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney 1998.74.6

While the public ridiculed the fauves, several critics were more appreciative, and some young artists found the new works thought-provoking and exciting.

One of those was Georges Braque, who had been pursuing a conservative, impressionist style. The Salon d'automne exhibition changed his art. Although Braque worked in the fauve style only briefly—about two years—he credited it as the step he needed to find his own way as an artist.

This view, like Derain's and Matisse's, was made in the warm light of the South of France. La Ciotat was a port and shipbuilding center near Marseilles.