Georgia O'Keeffe was an American painter chiefly known for her blend of abstraction and pictorialism which she applied to flowers, landscapes, and animal bones. Her style stressed contours and subtle tonal transitions, which often transformed the subject into a powerful abstract image. She grew up as a farmer's daughter with a large number of siblings in a family dominated by strong women and energetically pursued her goal to become an artist from an early age. She studied in Chicago and New York and earned a living by working as a design draftswoman and art teacher. Her life took a decisive turn in 1916 when the American photographer and art gallery director Alfred Stieglitz, whom she later married in 1924, became interested in her abstract drawings and exhibited them at his gallery in New York City. In 1929, after a successful decade in New York, O'Keeffe discovered what she felt to be the perfect landscape for her: New Mexico.