Georgia O'Keeffe used charcoal for the abstractions Alfred Stieglitz first exhibited in 1916.
In 1916, Alfred Stieglitz displayed a group of O'Keeffe's charcoal drawings at his New York gallery, 291. The drawings were among her earliest fully abstract works and introduced her to an influential modernist audience.
O'Keeffe had made the drawings in 1915 while teaching in South Carolina. Their sweeping lines and simplified forms departed from the conventional academic exercises expected of an art student and helped establish her distinctive artistic identity.
The works were not initially exhibited with O'Keeffe's explicit permission, a decision that contributed to a complicated professional relationship with Stieglitz. Their collaboration later became central to both their careers, but charcoal remains the specific medium associated with that first 1916 display.