Which artist inspired Georgia O'Keeffe through ideas about using line, color, and form?

Arthur Wesley Dow inspired Georgia O'Keeffe through ideas about line, color, and form.

O'Keeffe encountered Dow's teaching while studying at the University of Virginia and through his influential book Composition: A Series of Exercises in Art Structure. Dow argued that artists could organize line, color, and tonal relationships for their own expressive purposes instead of merely copying nature.

This approach helped O'Keeffe move away from the academic realism emphasized in her earlier training. Around 1915, she produced a series of abstract charcoal drawings that explored basic shapes and rhythmic lines. These works became important early examples of American abstraction and were later shown by Alfred Stieglitz.

Dow was not O'Keeffe's teacher at the Art Students League; William Merritt Chase held that role. The distinction matters because Chase taught academic painting, while Dow's compositional theories encouraged the freer, more experimental direction that O'Keeffe adopted.