Which artist and teacher encouraged Georgia O'Keeffe's early move toward abstraction?

Arthur Wesley Dow encouraged Georgia O'Keeffe's early move toward abstraction.

Dow was an American art educator whose ideas emphasized composition, line, color, and tonal relationships rather than copying nature literally. O'Keeffe studied with him at the University of Virginia in the summer of 1912, and his approach changed how she thought about making pictures.

After studying Dow's methods, O'Keeffe began creating increasingly abstract drawings and watercolors. These works later attracted the attention of photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz, who exhibited some of them in New York. Dow's influence did not determine O'Keeffe's mature style, but it gave her a framework for treating abstraction as a serious artistic language.

Dow is sometimes confused with Robert Henri, another important teacher in O'Keeffe's education. Henri taught her at the Art Students League, while Dow's compositional ideas were especially significant in her early experimentation.