Alon Bement taught Georgia O’Keeffe the influential color theory associated with Arthur Wesley Dow.
O’Keeffe encountered Arthur Wesley Dow’s ideas through Alon Bement, who taught at the University of Virginia summer school where she studied in 1912. Dow emphasized composition, harmony, and the expressive use of line, color, and tone rather than simple imitation of nature. These ideas helped O’Keeffe reconsider what an artwork could do.
Dow’s teaching became especially important because it offered O’Keeffe an alternative to the academic realism she had learned earlier. She began making increasingly abstract drawings and paintings, using reduced forms and controlled arrangements to express visual experience.
William Merritt Chase was also an important teacher in O’Keeffe’s early education, but he is not the answer to this question. Chase taught her at the Art Students League, whereas Bement was the instructor who introduced her to Dow’s influential approach.