Arthur Wesley Dow introduced Georgia O'Keeffe to influential modern-art ideas at Columbia University. O'Keeffe studied with Dow at Columbia University Teachers College in New York in 1914 and 1915.
Dow emphasized composition, line, color, and the arrangement of visual elements rather than simply copying nature. His teaching helped O'Keeffe move away from academic realism and toward a more personal, abstract approach. That change became crucial to her later reputation.
O'Keeffe had already received formal training in Chicago and New York, but she temporarily stopped making art after becoming dissatisfied with conventional academic methods. Dow's principles gave her a new way to think about artistic structure and expression.
Robert Henri and William Merritt Chase were also important teachers in American art, which can cause confusion in questions about O'Keeffe's education. Dow is the specific answer for the Columbia teaching relationship and for the compositional ideas that strongly influenced her early mature work.