Which teacher encouraged Georgia O'Keeffe's early experiments with abstract art in 1915?

Arthur Wesley Dow encouraged Georgia O'Keeffe's early experiments with abstract art in 1915.

O'Keeffe encountered Dow's ideas while studying at Columbia University Teachers College in New York. Dow emphasized composition, line, color, and design rather than simply copying what the eye saw. His approach gave O'Keeffe a framework for making art from simplified forms and personal responses.

In 1915, O'Keeffe produced a group of charcoal drawings that moved decisively beyond conventional representation. She sent some of these drawings to her friend Anita Pollitzer, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. Stieglitz later exhibited them, helping launch O'Keeffe's public career.

William Merritt Chase was an earlier teacher at the Art Students League, so the two names are sometimes mixed up. Chase taught traditional painting; Dow’s teaching was especially important to O'Keeffe’s turn toward abstraction.