to begin her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts there, the leading art school in Poland. To get into the Academy she had to pretend to be the daughter of a clerk, because her noble background would otherwise have prevented her acceptance on the course. Her years at the university, 1950–1954, coincided with some of the harshest assaults made on art by the leaders of the Eastern Bloc. By utilizing the doctrine of 'Socialist realism', all art forms in communist nations were forced to adhere to strict guidelines and limitations that subordinated the arts to the needs and demands of the State. Realist artistic depictions based on the national 19th-century academic tradition were the only form of artistic expression taught in Poland at the time. The Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, being the most important artistic institution in Poland, came under special scrutiny from the Ministry of Art and Culture, which administered all major decisions in the field at the time. Abakanowicz found the climate at the Academy to be highly "rigid" and overly "conservative". She recalled: While studying at the University she was required to take several textile design classes, learning the art of weaving, screen printing, and fiber design from instructors such as Anna Sledziewska, Eleonora Plutyńska, and Maria Urbanowicz. These instructors and skills would greatly influence Abakanowicz's work, as well as that of other prominent Polish artists of the time. First artworks Following her education at the Academy, Abakanowicz began to produce her first artistic works. Due to the fact that she spent most of her academic life moving from place to place, much of her earlier artwork was lost or damaged, with only a few, delicate plant drawings surviving. Between 1956 and 1959, she produced some of her earliest known works; a series of large gouaches and watercolors on paper and sewn-together linen sheets. These works, described as being 'biomorphic" in composition, depicted imaginary plants, birds, exotic fish, and seashells, among other biomorphic shapes and forms. Joanna Inglot wrote in The Figurative Sculpture of Magdalena Abakanowicz about these early works: "[they] pointed to Abakanowicz's early fascination with the natural world and its processes of germination, growth, blooming, and sprouting. They seem to capture the very energy of life, a quality that would become a constant feature of her art." Abakanowicz said: It was also during this time that Poland began to lift some of the