Which artist movement is most associated with Georgia O'Keeffe's early abstract charcoal drawings?

Georgia O'Keeffe's early abstract charcoal drawings are most associated with American modernism.

Created in 1915, the charcoal series marked a decisive break from the academic realism O'Keeffe had been taught. The drawings used curved, angular, and organic forms without directly depicting recognizable objects. They helped establish her as an important early American modernist.

Her approach was influenced by the ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow, who emphasized composition, line, and spatial relationships. O'Keeffe transformed those principles into a highly personal visual language. The works were abstract, but they were not based on a single European movement or a strict theoretical program.

The term “American modernism” is more accurate here than Precisionism, a related movement associated with sharply defined industrial and architectural forms. O'Keeffe later painted flowers, buildings, landscapes, and bones, but abstraction remained central to her artistic identity throughout her career.