Which art educator's ideas changed Georgia O'Keeffe's approach to composition?

Arthur Wesley Dow's ideas changed Georgia O'Keeffe's approach to composition.

O'Keeffe encountered Dow's teaching through his book Composition and through lessons with Alon Bement at the University of Virginia. Dow argued that artists could organize line, color, and tone for their expressive power instead of merely copying the visible world. This approach offered O'Keeffe a way to move beyond the academic realism she had been taught.

After studying Dow's principles, O'Keeffe produced a series of abstract charcoal drawings in 1915. She sent them to her friend Anita Pollitzer, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. Stieglitz's 1916 exhibition of those drawings helped launch O'Keeffe's professional career.

William Merritt Chase was also an important teacher, but he represented an earlier phase of her training. Dow is the specific educator linked to the compositional ideas behind her early abstractions.