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

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

Dow was an American painter, printmaker, photographer, and influential art educator. His teaching emphasized composition through line, color, and tone rather than simply copying the visible world. O'Keeffe encountered his ideas while studying at the University of Virginia and through his widely read instructional book, Composition.

Dow's approach gave O'Keeffe a framework for making art from simplified visual elements. Instead of treating art as a direct imitation of nature, the method encouraged artists to organize shapes and colors for their expressive power. This influence was important as O'Keeffe developed the abstract charcoal drawings that she made in the mid-1910s.

Robert Henri and John Singer Sargent were also significant American artists, but they are not the specific teacher associated with this turning point in O'Keeffe's education. O'Keeffe's later style was her own: Dow supplied ideas about composition, while her experiences, experiments, and subjects shaped the distinctive work for which she became famous.