Drawing XIII is widely regarded as Georgia O'Keeffe's first major abstract drawing. Made in 1915, it belongs to a pioneering series of charcoal works in which she explored line, shape, and movement without depicting a recognizable object.
O'Keeffe created the drawings while teaching in South Carolina and Virginia. She sent some of them to photographer and gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz, who exhibited them in New York in 1916. Their radical simplicity helped make her an important early American abstract artist.
The title can be confused with the later painting No. 13—White and Blue, which is a separate work from 1930. O'Keeffe continued to balance abstraction and representation throughout her career, so her later flowers and landscapes should not be treated as a complete break from these early experiments.