Which art educator's 1914 ideas helped Georgia O'Keeffe move toward abstraction?

Arthur Wesley Dow's ideas helped Georgia O'Keeffe move toward abstraction in 1914.

O'Keeffe encountered Dow's teaching while studying at Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York. Dow emphasized composition, line, color, and design rather than requiring artists to reproduce subjects literally. This approach offered O'Keeffe a way to make expressive images from simplified forms.

After learning about Dow's principles, O'Keeffe began creating abstract charcoal drawings that departed sharply from the conventional academic work she had previously produced. She sent some of these drawings to Anita Pollitzer, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. Their exhibition at his gallery 291 in 1916 helped launch O'Keeffe's public career.

Dow did not teach O'Keeffe as a conventional long-term studio instructor; his ideas reached her through Teachers College and its teaching environment. Robert Henri and John Singer Sargent were influential artists of the period, but Dow is the figure specifically associated with this turning point in O'Keeffe's development.