Alon Bement taught Georgia O'Keeffe at the University of Virginia and introduced her to Arthur Wesley Dow's ideas.
O'Keeffe worked as an art teacher and instructor before becoming widely known as a painter. At the University of Virginia, she encountered the teaching of Alon Bement, who had been associated with Arthur Wesley Dow. Bement's approach helped direct her attention toward design, composition, and the expressive possibilities of line and form.
O'Keeffe later studied with Dow at Columbia University Teachers College in New York. Dow's ideas were important because they offered an alternative to the academic emphasis on copying objects realistically. Instead, students were encouraged to organize visual elements such as line, color, and shape in ways that produced harmonious compositions.
This training helps explain why O'Keeffe's early abstractions are often discussed as more than simplified pictures of nature. Her later work remained connected to recognizable subjects, but she repeatedly reduced them to essential forms. Bement is less famous than Dow, Chase, or Henri, which makes the name an easy one to overlook.