Georgia O'Keeffe's first major abstract charcoal series was called Specials.
O'Keeffe created the Specials drawings in 1915 while teaching art in South Carolina. Working almost entirely in charcoal, she reduced landscapes and sensations to dynamic lines, arcs, and voids rather than recognizable objects.
She mailed the drawings to her friend Anita Pollitzer, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. Stieglitz exhibited some of them at his 291 gallery in 1916, making O'Keeffe one of the first American artists to receive a solo presentation there.
The series marks a decisive break from the academic realism O'Keeffe had learned in art school. “Specials” is the accepted series name; individual drawings are often cataloged with numbers or descriptive titles, so treating the whole group as a single painting is inaccurate.