Who was Georgia O'Keeffe's influential art teacher at Columbia University?

Arthur Wesley Dow was Georgia O'Keeffe's influential teacher at Columbia University.

O'Keeffe studied with Dow at Columbia University's Teachers College in New York beginning in 1914. Dow emphasized composition, design, and the expressive use of line, color, and tone rather than simply copying visible reality. His ideas gave O'Keeffe a framework for developing a more personal and abstract visual language.

Dow's influence became especially important when O'Keeffe began making a series of highly simplified charcoal drawings in 1915. Those works departed from the academic conventions she had learned earlier and helped establish the direction that brought her art to Alfred Stieglitz's attention.

William Merritt Chase was another important teacher, but O'Keeffe studied with him at the Art Students League earlier. Robert Henri taught other American artists, while Thomas Hart Benton belonged to a later generation of American modernists. Dow is the specific Columbia teacher associated with O'Keeffe's breakthrough toward abstraction.