What was Georgia O'Keeffe's first major art-teaching position?

Georgia O'Keeffe's first major art-teaching position was at West Texas State Normal College.

She began teaching at the college in Canyon, Texas, in 1916 and remained there until 1918. The institution is now known as West Texas A&M University. Her position gave her a stable income while she developed the abstract charcoal drawings that brought her work to Alfred Stieglitz’s attention.

O'Keeffe had already studied art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York. She later trained as an art teacher at the University of Virginia’s summer school and taught in several places before reaching Canyon.

The college is often overlooked because later biographies emphasize New York and New Mexico. Yet her Texas teaching years were an important bridge between academic training and her independent modernist practice.