What was Georgia O'Keeffe's first major art-school training institution?

Georgia O'Keeffe's first major art-school training institution was the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

O'Keeffe attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1905 to 1906. There she received conventional academic training in drawing and painting, building skills that later supported her increasingly independent approach to modern art.

She subsequently studied at the Art Students League in New York, where William Merritt Chase taught her. Financial difficulties interrupted her formal education, and she later worked as a commercial artist and teacher while developing her own ideas about abstraction.

The wording “first major art-school training institution” distinguishes the Chicago school from the Art Students League. Both were important, but the Chicago institution came first. O'Keeffe's later work moved far beyond the academic methods she initially learned, especially after she encountered the ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow and began making abstract compositions.