Georgia O'Keeffe used charcoal for the 1916 abstract works shown by Alfred Stieglitz.
O'Keeffe made the drawings in charcoal while teaching art in Texas and South Carolina. In 1916, her friend Anita Pollitzer showed examples to Alfred Stieglitz, who exhibited them at his New York gallery, 291. The works were among the earliest abstract drawings by an American artist to attract major attention.
Charcoal allowed O'Keeffe to work rapidly with broad, dark marks and delicate gradations. The drawings do not depict recognizable objects in a conventional way; instead, they explore line, shape, rhythm, and movement. This period helped establish the abstract language that she would continue developing in paintings.
The series is sometimes described generally as paintings because of O'Keeffe's later fame as a painter. The works that first reached Stieglitz, however, were charcoal drawings, a distinction important to the story of her breakthrough.