Charcoal was the first major medium Georgia O'Keeffe used for her 1915 abstract series. Working primarily in black and white, she created a group of simplified drawings that explored line, rhythm, and organic form without depicting recognizable objects.
O'Keeffe sent the drawings to her friend Anita Pollitzer, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. Stieglitz exhibited several at his 291 gallery in New York in 1916, helping bring O'Keeffe to the attention of the American art world.
These works are important because they established O'Keeffe as an innovator before her famous flower paintings became widely known. Her later career included oil, watercolor, pastel, and pencil, but the charcoal drawings provided the breakthrough that defined her early abstract reputation.