Henri Matisse

Bold streaks of orange, green, and pink cover this face in ways that have nothing to do with real skin tones, and that was exactly the point. André Derain painted his friend and fellow artist Henri Matisse in 1905, throwing "correct" colors out the window in favor of pure, glowing energy. This is Fauvism, a style Derain and Matisse cooked up together. A critic gave the movement its name when he called the artists "les fauves," or "the wild beasts," a jab at how untamed their colors looked next to everything that came before.

The sitter here is a giant of modern art in his own right. Matisse would become one of the twentieth century's great painters, and Derain shows him relaxed, pipe in hand, meeting our gaze with an easy confidence. The two men spent that summer together in Collioure, a fishing town on the southern coast of France, where the strong Mediterranean sunlight nudged them both toward brighter, unmixed color. Thick dabs of paint and quick, loose brushwork give the portrait its buzzing life, as if Derain cared more about catching his friend's spirit than every fine detail.

Here is a fun twist: Matisse painted Derain during that same summer, so the friends ended up making portraits of each other. That back and forth turns these paintings into a small souvenir of friendship, a glimpse of two young artists pushing one another as they helped reshape the whole direction of modern painting.