At which university did Georgia O’Keeffe study under Alon Bement before developing her abstract style?

Georgia O’Keeffe studied under Alon Bement at the University of Virginia.

O’Keeffe attended summer sessions at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in 1912 and 1914. Alon Bement, an influential art educator, introduced her to ideas derived from Arthur Wesley Dow, whose approach emphasized line, color, and composition rather than simply copying the visible world.

These ideas became crucial to O’Keeffe’s artistic development. After her studies, she produced a series of abstract charcoal drawings in 1915 that moved beyond conventional representation. Those drawings were later shown to Alfred Stieglitz and helped launch her professional career in New York.

O’Keeffe studied at several institutions, including the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York. Because of that varied education, the University of Virginia is sometimes overlooked, even though her work there helped connect Dow’s principles to her emerging modernist language.