Arthur Wesley Dow influenced Georgia O'Keeffe through lessons on composition at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Dow taught that art could be organized through line, color, and tonal relationships rather than simply by copying visible objects. O'Keeffe studied with him in 1914, and his ideas helped her move toward a more personal and abstract approach to image-making.
This influence was especially important because O'Keeffe had already received conventional academic training. Dow offered a different framework, one that valued arrangement and expressive design. She later applied those principles in abstract drawings, enlarged flower paintings, architectural forms, and landscapes.
Dow should not be confused with William Merritt Chase, another important teacher in O'Keeffe’s education. Chase taught her at the Art Students League in New York, while Dow’s teaching at Columbia helped redirect her artistic thinking. O'Keeffe did not simply imitate Dow’s style; she adapted his compositional ideas into a distinctive modernist language.