Georgia O’Keeffe moved to New York to paint full time in 1918.
The move followed a major turning point in her career. Alfred Stieglitz, the influential photographer and gallery owner, had exhibited some of her abstract charcoal drawings without her prior knowledge. Their correspondence and professional relationship helped bring her work to wider attention.
New York introduced O’Keeffe to the galleries, artists, and cultural debates of the early twentieth century. She lived and worked in the city for periods while also traveling elsewhere, and she became closely associated with Stieglitz’s Gallery 291 and later his Intimate Gallery. They married in 1924.
The year 1918 is often confused with 1915, when O’Keeffe made the abstract drawings that first attracted Stieglitz’s attention. Those drawings preceded her move to New York rather than marking it.