Georgia O'Keeffe created her groundbreaking abstract charcoal drawings in 1915.
The 1915 charcoal series marked a decisive break from the representational art exercises common in her formal training. O'Keeffe reduced forms to energetic lines, curves, and shapes, using abstraction to express ideas and sensations rather than depict recognizable objects.
She mailed some of these drawings to photographer and gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz. He exhibited them at his New York gallery, 291, in 1916, without initially asking her permission. The exhibition helped bring O'Keeffe's work to the attention of the New York art world.
The drawings are important because they established O'Keeffe as an early American pioneer of abstraction. The year 1915 is often confused with 1916, the year Stieglitz first displayed the works. The art was made in 1915; the gallery exhibition followed in 1916.