Alon Bement introduced Georgia O'Keeffe to the principles of modern art through Arthur Wesley Dow's ideas.
O'Keeffe studied with Bement at the University of Virginia in 1912. Bement had studied with Arthur Wesley Dow, whose approach emphasized composition, line, color, and the arrangement of forms rather than simply copying visible nature.
Dow's ideas became a turning point for O'Keeffe. They gave her a framework for making art from personal design choices and helped lead her away from academic realism toward abstraction. She later studied directly with Dow at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Robert Henri and William Merritt Chase were also important figures in O'Keeffe's education, which makes the names easy to mix up. Bement is the specific teacher associated with her first exposure to Dow's modernist principles.