Which teacher’s ideas about composition helped Georgia O'Keeffe move beyond academic realism?

Arthur Wesley Dow’s ideas about composition helped Georgia O'Keeffe move beyond academic realism.

O'Keeffe encountered Dow’s approach while studying at the University of Virginia and through his influential teaching manual, Composition. Dow emphasized the expressive arrangement of line, color, and tone rather than merely copying the visible world. This offered O'Keeffe a way to think about art as an organized visual language.

The influence was especially important as she developed her early abstract drawings around 1915. O'Keeffe did not simply imitate Dow’s subjects or style; instead, she adapted his compositional principles to create highly personal works. William Merritt Chase was another important teacher in her training, but Dow is the figure most directly associated with her break from conventional representation.