Which art teacher influenced Georgia O'Keeffe at the University of Virginia?

Alon Bement influenced Georgia O'Keeffe while she studied and taught at the University of Virginia. Bement's ideas helped direct her toward an approach that emphasized design, rhythm, and the expressive possibilities of abstract form.

O'Keeffe encountered Bement's teaching after earlier study at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York. His instruction encouraged her to think beyond copying visible objects and to consider how line, shape, and color could communicate feeling.

Arthur Wesley Dow became another decisive influence later, especially through O'Keeffe's study of his principles and her work at Columbia University. Because Dow is the more frequently cited name in accounts of her mature artistic ideas, readers sometimes attribute every formative teaching influence to him. Bement, however, was an important earlier mentor.