Georgia O'Keeffe began making the abstract charcoal drawings associated with her modernist breakthrough in 1915.
At the time, O'Keeffe was teaching art in South Carolina. She turned away from the highly finished, descriptive exercises expected by much academic art training and experimented with lines, shapes, and tonal contrasts that did not directly represent recognizable objects.
The drawings were radical within the context of American art education, which still emphasized observational representation. O'Keeffe sent some of them to her friend Anita Pollitzer, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz in New York. Stieglitz exhibited a selection at his gallery 291 in 1916.
The year 1915 is sometimes confused with 1916 because the first gallery exhibition occurred in 1916. The distinction matters: 1915 identifies the beginning of the important charcoal series, while 1916 marks its public presentation. O'Keeffe later moved between abstraction and recognizable subjects, rather than abandoning one mode permanently.