Alon Bement introduced Georgia O'Keeffe to the ideas of Arthur Wesley Dow.
O'Keeffe encountered Dow's approach while working as an art teacher in Virginia. Alon Bement, one of her instructors at the University of Virginia's summer school, directed her attention to Dow's principles of composition.
Dow emphasized design, arrangement, and personal expression rather than simply copying what the eye sees. This approach helped O'Keeffe rethink academic art and encouraged her to explore simplified forms, lines, and tonal relationships.
Arthur Wesley Dow was the major theorist associated with these ideas, but he was not the person who first brought them to O'Keeffe in this account. Alon Bement is the intermediary often omitted in brief summaries. O'Keeffe's later abstractions grew from this shift toward a more individual visual language.