In 1924, while a pre-medical student at Columbia University, Isamu Noguchi was encouraged by his mother to take an evening class with sculptor Onorio Ruotolo at the Leonardo da Vinci School of Art on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Trained as a figurative sculptor Noguchi achieved immediate success, holding his first exhibition at the school within three months and in the next three years exhibiting sculpture at the National Academy of Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In his own studio at 127 University Place Noguchi modeled figures in clay and plaster, including the tour de force of his academic style, Undine (Nadja). Although Noguchi rejected academicism when he went to Paris and studied with Brancusi, he would employ his academic skills to make portrait heads as a means of support during the 1930s.