Georgia O'Keeffe used charcoal for her famous 1915 series of abstract works.
The drawings were among the first completely abstract works produced by an American artist. O'Keeffe made them while teaching in South Carolina, working with simple lines, shapes, and tonal contrasts rather than depicting recognizable objects. She sent some of the drawings to Anita Pollitzer, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz in New York. Their presentation at 291 helped bring O'Keeffe’s work to wider attention.
The charcoal series is sometimes confused with her later flower paintings, which were frequently made in oil. It is also distinct from her watercolor experiments and earlier academic studies. O'Keeffe’s decision to work abstractly was important because it demonstrated that personal feeling and visual rhythm could be communicated without a literal subject. These drawings established a foundation for the modernist language she continued to refine.