Which teacher introduced Georgia O'Keeffe to the design ideas that shaped her abstraction?

Arthur Wesley Dow introduced Georgia O'Keeffe to design ideas that shaped her abstraction. O'Keeffe encountered Dow's principles while studying at the University of Virginia and later through his teaching and writing.

Dow emphasized composition, line, color, and tonal relationships rather than faithful reproduction of visible objects. His approach offered O'Keeffe an alternative to the academic methods she had learned at earlier art schools.

Around 1915, these ideas helped her create a series of charcoal abstractions based on lines and shapes rather than recognizable subjects. She sent some of the drawings to Anita Pollitzer, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz.

William Merritt Chase was also important in O'Keeffe's training, but he taught her at the Art Students League in a more traditional academic manner. Dow's influence is specifically associated with the conceptual shift toward her early abstraction.