Arthur Wesley Dow's design principles strongly influenced Georgia O'Keeffe at the University of Virginia.
O'Keeffe encountered Dow's ideas through Alon Bement, who taught at the University of Virginia and had studied with Dow. Dow argued that artists should organize line, color, and tone rather than simply copy nature, an approach that deeply affected O'Keeffe's development.
She later studied Dow's influential book Composition, first published in 1899. Its emphasis on visual structure helped her move toward abstraction and away from academic imitation. Her early abstract drawings made in 1915 are often connected with this turning point.
Dow himself was an educator, painter, printmaker, and design theorist. Robert Henri was another important teacher in O'Keeffe's education, particularly at the Art Students League, but he was not the source of the design principles associated with this question.