Which influential teacher did Georgia O’Keeffe study with at Teachers College?

Georgia O’Keeffe studied with influential art educator Arthur Wesley Dow at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Dow emphasized composition, design, and the expressive arrangement of line, color, and shape rather than relying only on realistic imitation. His teaching gave O’Keeffe an alternative to the academic approach she had encountered in earlier training. That emphasis became especially significant as she developed a personal visual language based on simplified forms and strong compositions.

O’Keeffe studied with Dow in New York in 1914. He was not primarily known as a painter in the same public way as some of O’Keeffe’s other contemporaries; he was a major teacher and theorist whose ideas influenced several generations of American artists. O’Keeffe’s later abstraction is therefore often discussed in connection with Dow’s design principles, not as a direct imitation of his artwork.