Which university employed Georgia O'Keeffe as head of its art department in 1917?

Georgia O'Keeffe became head of the art department at West Texas State Normal College in 1917. The school was in Canyon, Texas, near the Palo Duro Canyon region, and is now known as West Texas A&M University.

O'Keeffe accepted the teaching position after studying and teaching art in Texas and Virginia. During her years in Canyon, she continued developing an increasingly personal approach to abstraction and responded to the stark landscape of the Texas Panhandle.

The job was an important stage before O'Keeffe moved permanently into the New York-centered art world. It is sometimes overlooked because her later reputation is so strongly associated with New Mexico. West Texas State Normal College was a historical name, not the university's current name. O'Keeffe later taught at the University of Virginia, but that was a separate teaching appointment and should not be substituted for the 1917 Texas position.