Which teacher's 1915 exercises inspired Georgia O'Keeffe to create abstract charcoal drawings?

Arthur Wesley Dow's ideas inspired Georgia O'Keeffe to create abstract charcoal drawings in 1915.

O'Keeffe encountered Dow's teaching through Alon Bement, who taught at the University of Virginia. Dow promoted an approach based on the organization of line, color, and tonal relationships. This differed from the academic demand to reproduce visible subjects as accurately as possible.

In 1915, O'Keeffe made a series of radically simplified charcoal abstractions while teaching in South Carolina. She sent some of these drawings to her friend Anita Pollitzer, who showed them to Alfred Stieglitz. Their exhibition at 291 in New York brought O'Keeffe wider attention.

Dow had studied with James McNeill Whistler and became an important advocate of Japanese principles of composition in American art education. O'Keeffe did not simply copy Dow's style; she adapted his emphasis on design to develop a personal visual language. Her 1915 abstractions are often treated as a turning point in American modernism.