<P> In 1881, the government withdrew official sponsorship from the annual Salon, and a group of artists organized the Société des Artistes Français to take responsibility for the show . </P> <P> In December 1890, the leader of the Société des Artistes Français, William - Adolphe Bouguereau, propagated the idea that Salon should be an exhibition of young, not - yet awarded, artists . Ernest Meissonier, Puvis de Chavannes, Auguste Rodin and others rejected this proposal and made a secession . They created the Société Nationale des Beaux - Arts and its own exhibition, immediately referred to in the press as the Salon du Champ de Mars or the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux--Arts; it was soon also widely known as the Nationale . </P> <P> In 1903, in response to what many artists at the time felt was a bureaucratic and conservative organization, a group of painters and sculptors led by Pierre - Auguste Renoir and Auguste Rodin organized the Salon d'Automne . </P>

Official art exhibition of the academie des beaux arts in paris