Georgia O'Keeffe's first major abstract series of charcoal drawings was called Specials.
O'Keeffe created the series in 1915 while teaching in South Carolina. The drawings used simplified lines, curves, and forms rather than recognizable subjects, marking a decisive break from the academic realism she had been taught. She sent some of the drawings to her friend Anita Pollitzer, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz in New York in 1916.
Stieglitz was impressed and exhibited the drawings at his gallery 291. This was the first public presentation of O'Keeffe's work in New York and helped launch her professional career. “Specials” is sometimes confused with later groups such as Music, which contains paintings and drawings exploring related abstract ideas, or with Stieglitz's Equivalents photographs. Those are separate bodies of work. The key sequence is that Specials came first, Pollitzer showed the drawings to Stieglitz, and 291 exhibited them in 1916.