Georgia O'Keeffe moved to New York in 1918 to pursue painting more fully.
The move followed her years of teaching and studying art. Photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz had exhibited some of her abstract drawings at his New York gallery, 291, before they met in person. Stieglitz then invited her to live and work in New York, giving her direct contact with the city’s modernist art circles.
New York exposed O'Keeffe to artists, photographers, galleries, and new approaches to abstraction. She continued to develop her own strongly simplified visual language rather than adopting a single European style.
The year 1918 is sometimes confused with 1924, when O'Keeffe and Stieglitz married. Her move to New York came six years before the marriage. New York became an important base for her career, even though New Mexico later supplied many of her most recognizable subjects.