Georgia O'Keeffe’s 1915 Specials series helped establish her reputation for abstract art.
The series consists of charcoal drawings made while O'Keeffe was teaching in South Carolina. She used simplified lines, shapes, and tonal contrasts rather than depicting recognizable objects. These works were among the earliest wholly abstract pieces produced by an American artist.
O'Keeffe sent the drawings to Alfred Stieglitz, who exhibited them at his New York gallery 291 in 1916. Their display introduced her work to an influential modern-art audience before she had established a long exhibition history.
The series is sometimes overlooked because O'Keeffe later became famous for flowers, bones, architecture, and desert landscapes. Yet the Specials drawings are essential for understanding her early breakthrough and her role in the development of American abstraction.