Georgia O'Keeffe began making her large charcoal abstractions in 1915. These works were among her earliest fully abstract drawings and marked a decisive break from the conventional academic art exercises she had previously been taught.
She created the drawings while teaching in South Carolina, using simplified lines and shapes rather than recognizable subjects. Her friend Anita Pollitzer showed some of them to Alfred Stieglitz, who exhibited them at his New York gallery in 1916. The presentation made O'Keeffe one of the first American artists whose work Stieglitz showed as purely abstract.
The 1915 date is important because O'Keeffe’s later flower paintings are often treated as the beginning of her modernist style. In fact, the charcoal series established her abstract visual language first. The drawings were not merely preparatory sketches for flowers; they were independent experiments in line, rhythm, and form.