Which Virginia university did Georgia O'Keeffe attend as a summer student in 1912?

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Georgia O'Keeffe attended the University of Virginia as a summer student in 1912.

O'Keeffe studied at the University of Virginia during a summer session, where she took a class with Alon Bement. Bement was associated with the Teachers College of Columbia University and introduced her to ideas from Arthur Wesley Dow about design and simplified form.

Dow's approach became especially important to O'Keeffe because it emphasized composition, line, and the expressive organization of shapes rather than simply copying visible objects. Those principles helped her move toward the abstract language that later defined much of her work.

The summer study is sometimes omitted from short biographies, which usually emphasize her Chicago and New York art-school years. It was nevertheless a significant bridge between her academic training and her independent experiments.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Sept. 2026

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