Edgar Degas
Degas's only showing of sculpture during his life took place in 1881 when he exhibited "The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years". A nearly life-size wax figure with real hair and dressed in a cloth tutu, it provoked a strong reaction from critics, most of whom found its realism extraordinary but denounced the dancer as ugly. In a review, J.-K. Huysmans wrote: "The terrible reality of this statuette evidently produces uneasiness in the spectators; all their notions about sculpture, about those cold inanimate whitenesses ... are here overturned. The fact is that with his first attempt Monsieur Degas has revolutionized the traditions of sculpture as he has long since shaken the conventions of painting."
Cubism
Cubism burgeoned between 1907 and 1911. Pablo Picasso's 1907 painting "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" has often been considered a proto-Cubist work. Georges Braque's 1908 "Houses at L’Estaque" (and related works) prompted the critic Louis Vauxcelles, in "Gil Blas", 25 March 1909, to refer to "bizarreries cubiques" (cubic oddities). Gertrude Stein referred to landscapes made by Picasso in 1909, such as "Reservoir at Horta de Ebro", as the first Cubist paintings. The first organized group exhibition by Cubists took place at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris during the spring of 1911 in a room called 'Salle 41'; it included works by Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay and Henri Le Fauconnier, yet no works by Picasso or Braque were exhibited.