Georgia O'Keeffe's first widely recognized abstract painting series from 1915 was called Specials.
The series consisted of nonrepresentational charcoal drawings made in 1915. O'Keeffe created them while teaching in South Carolina and sent some of the drawings to a friend, Anita Pollitzer. Pollitzer showed them to Alfred Stieglitz, who exhibited them at his New York gallery in 1916.
The drawings were important because O'Keeffe developed an abstract visual language without directly copying European examples. Their sweeping lines and simplified forms helped establish her as an innovative American artist before she became famous for flowers and New Mexico imagery.
The title Specials can be overlooked because many discussions focus on individual later works. It also should not be confused with O'Keeffe's later series titles Music, Abstraction, or Pelvis, which belong to different bodies of work.