Georgia O’Keeffe moved to New York City in 1918 to pursue painting full time. The move followed an important period of experimentation in Virginia and South Carolina, where she developed increasingly abstract drawings and paintings.
Her friend Anita Pollitzer showed some of O’Keeffe’s charcoal drawings to photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz. Stieglitz exhibited them at his New York gallery, 291, in 1916. O’Keeffe moved to New York two years later after Stieglitz offered to help support her as an artist.
New York became central to O’Keeffe’s career and personal life. She lived and worked there for many years and married Stieglitz in 1924. The move is sometimes confused with her later relocation to New Mexico, which became her permanent home from 1949.