Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vincent van Gogh. The proceeds of the first show were earmarked for the victims of cholera. The second exhibition was held in 1886 in a temporary building in the Tuileries Garden with 200 paintings exhibited, including the first showing by Henri Rousseau. By 1905 Pierre Bonnard, Jean Metzinger and Henri Matisse had exhibited there. During the period between 1890 and 1914 known as La Belle Époque practically all of the artists associated with modernism and the avant-garde exhibited at the Indépendants. The works exhibited ranged in style from Realist to post-Impressionist, Nabis, Symbolist, Neo-impressionist/Divisionist, Fauve, Expressionist, Cubist and Abstract art. The submission payment was 10 francs for four works. In 1906 ten works could be submitted for 25 francs and from 1909 only two. In 1895 and 1897 the Salon des Indépendants was held at the Palais des Beaux-Arts et des Arts libéraux (Champ de Mars). Between 1901 and 1907, the exhibition was held in the Grandes Serres de la Ville de Paris (Cours-la-Reine, Paris), also called Grande Serre de l'Alma, built for the Exposition Universelle of 1900. From 1920 the exhibitions were held at the Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées in Paris. After some initial successes in the 1880s, response to the Indépendants waned in the 1890s. By 1897 art critic Andre Fontainas would complain "The Salon of the Independants reveals itself to be more and more sterile every year. Nothing, nothing and nothing! ... Why M. Signac? Why M. Luce?" Many avant-garde artists, including those associated with the Société des Artistes Indépendants shifted towards commercial venues in the 1890s. Due to space constraints stemming from preparations for the 1900 Exposition Universelle, the 1899 exhibition had only 187 artists, down from more than 1000 in 1897. In 1900, the Indépendants reached its lowpoint, with only 55 exhibitors and few serious or substantial critical reviews. 1901 Turning Point In 1901, however, the society rebounded with more than 1000 paintings exhibited, and critics paying it serious attention again. Reviews of that years show were decidedly positive, even calling it "one of the most brilliant exhibitions" in the group's 17-year history. Fontainas, who had cried "Why M. Signac?" in 1897, and in 1899 declared the society "almost dead" did an abrupt about-face in 1901, highly praising the Salon. Art critic Roger Marx highly praised that year's exhibition and importantly, he continued to link its success to the