Which 1915 series made Georgia O'Keeffe one of the first American artists to create purely abstract drawings?

Georgia O'Keeffe's 1915 charcoal abstractions made her one of the first American artists to create purely abstract drawings. The small group of works reduced form to sweeping lines, curves, and tonal relationships without depicting recognizable objects.

O'Keeffe created the drawings while teaching in South Carolina, during a period when she was rethinking the academic art methods she had learned. She sent them to Anita Pollitzer, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. Stieglitz exhibited them at his New York gallery in 1916, helping launch O'Keeffe’s professional career.

The series is especially important because it predates the flower paintings for which O'Keeffe became famous. It also demonstrates that abstraction was not merely a later simplification of her realistic subjects. For O'Keeffe, line and form could communicate feeling directly, without depending on a recognizable scene or object.