In the early years of the twentieth century it was no longer possible to overlook the Salon des Indépendants. Even the lumbering state machinery was obliged, if not to reckon with it in the full sense of the word, then at least to make a gesture in its direction. Even earlier, the Direction des Beaux-Arts had sent its commissioners to the Salon des Indépendants to select pieces for purchase by the state, but they had never once found anything suitable. In 1902 the commissioner was Léonce Bénédit, curator of the Musée du Luxembourg, but he, too, found it possible to acquire only some “très delicates”[4] sketches by Édouard Vuillard. Yet the choice at the 1902 Salon des Indépendants was a fairly wide one. Among the many others, there were almost forty works by five of the future Fauves led by Henri Matisse, and an attentive eye would have discovered them the year before as well. However, they were probably not yet perceived as a distinct phenomenon or even as an association, more so since they themselves did not make an aim of exhibiting together. In 1902 they failed not only to disturb anyone, but even to attract any great attention at all. The Salon des Indépendants was then simply one of the possible places for showing their work — a few of the future Fauves managed to get a work or two into the official Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (Van Dongen, Manguin) or even into the International Exhibition held in Venice (Dufy, Friesz, Rouault). The nascent Fauves had not been noticed due to the fact that they were still outsiders, even for the Salon des Indépendants where in the course of time they would establish their own authority and preferences. For the future Fauves, however, these first public appearances, for all their failure to create an impression, did play a major role: a process of formation was underway, formation not simply of their grouping, but of their artistic outlook. Their complex, yet definite conception of their own painting, three years later would attain not only perceptible form, but also recognition.

On 31 October, in the Petit Palais, a new exhibition opened which had not previously existed — the Salon d’Automne. Also founded by painters who had been rejected by the official salons, this exhibition was, at the moment of its creation, a strange combination of the most progressive forces in art and others which were quite conservative by the standards of the time. In contrast to the Salon des Indépendants, here there was a jury, selected five days before the exhibition. The deputy chief curator of the Petit Palais, Yvanhoé Rambosson, managed to secure premises for the new salon in the basements of his museum. From the very onset, the exhibition committee included a number of Moreau’s former pupils — Georges Desvallières, Henri Matisse, Albert Marquet and Georges Rouault. In 1903 only four of the future Fauves exhibited here — Matisse, Marquet, Rouault and Manguin; however, these artists not only took advantage of a new opportunity to exhibit, but at once began to look on the Salon d’Automne as the main venue for presenting their work. In contrast to the already customary Salon des Indépendants, the Salon d’Automne attracted both visitors and critics through its intriguing novelty. So it became their principal exhibition place and this was the start of a new era in their lives.

In 1904 and subsequent years, the Grand Palais accepted the Salon d’Automne. Additionally, 1904 saw an extensive and brilliant display of art by the future Fauves in some of the private galleries of Paris, Berthe Weill playing the leading roll in presenting these works, became effective propaganda centres for their art: some definite new trend was in the process of emerging from the latest art.