Eva Mirabal facts for kids

Eva Mirabal (1920–1968) was a talented Native American artist. She was also known as Eah-Ha-Wa, which means 'Fast Growing Corn' in the Tiwa language. Eva was a painter, muralist, illustrator, and cartoonist from Taos Pueblo, New Mexico. She often used gouache, a special type of watercolor paint, in her artworks.

Growing Up and Learning

Eva Mirabal was born in 1920 in Taos Pueblo, New Mexico. When she was a child, her father, Pedro Mirabal, and other family members often posed as models for artists who visited Taos. These artists were not Native American, and included famous painters like Nicolai Fechin and Joseph Imhoff.

Eva once said in an interview in 1946 that her tribe made beautiful silver items and woven goods. They also created lovely necklaces and bracelets from beads. She explained that she was always surrounded by art in her daily life as she grew up.

School Days

After finishing 8th grade at Taos Pueblo Day School in the early 1930s, Eva went to the Santa Fe Indian School. There, she studied art with teachers like Dorothy Dunn and J.C. Montoya. Dorothy Dunn noticed Eva's special talent. She wrote that Eva could turn everyday events into warm and beautiful scenes.

While at the Studio School, which was run by the government, Eva helped with important projects. During World War II, she designed a poster to encourage people to buy war bonds. She also created an illustration of a map showing Native American tribes across the United States for the Association on American Indian Affairs.

Even as a teenager, Eva's art caught a lot of attention. She was chosen to show her paintings at an art exhibition in Chicago. Unlike many non-Native American painters in Taos who painted romantic scenes of Native life, Eva focused on showing real people doing everyday things at the Pueblo.

Her Amazing Career

From the 1930s to the 1960s, Eva Mirabal painted large murals in many different places. Some of these included the Santa Fe Indian School, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the Buhl Planetarium, and the library at the Veterans' Hospital in Albuquerque.

Serving Her Country

In 1943, Eva joined the Women's Army Corps. She served in the army until 1947. During her time there, she worked as a cartoonist for the Women's Army Corps. She created a comic strip series called G.I. Gertie. This made her one of the very first female cartoonists to have her own published comic strip! She also designed posters for the war and a huge mural called A Bridge of Wings at the Air Service Command in Patterson Field, Ohio.

After the War

After the war ended, Eva continued her art career. She taught and painted as an artist-in-residence at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. In 1946, she was the only woman whose art was shown in the First National Exhibition of Indian Painting at the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa.

In 1949, Eva Mirabal returned to Taos Pueblo. She studied at the Taos Valley Art School, which was run by Louis Ribak and Beatrice Mandelman. One of her paintings, Picking Wild Berries, was part of a traveling art show in 1953. This exhibition, called Contemporary American Indian Painting, was put together by Dorothy Dunn.

Eva Mirabal passed away in 1968.

Her Family and Legacy

Eva Mirabal's son, Jonathan Warm Day Coming, also became an artist. In 2013, Eva and her son had a special art exhibition together at the Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, New Mexico. This showed how her artistic talent continued through her family.

Awards and Recognition

• 1940 – Margretta S. Dietrich Award for her painting "Picking Wild Berries" (1940), from the Museum of New Mexico