Eva Mirabal : Three Generations of Tradition and Modernity at Taos Pueblo

Eva Mirabal (Eah-Ha-Wa, Fast Growing Corn, 1920–1968) studied for six years at the Dorothy Dunn Studio art program in Santa Fe, where she was a favorite of the program’s founder and served as an assistant to Dunn’s successor, Geronima Montoya. By the time she was twenty years old, Mirabal was exhibiting in museums and galleries across the country. After her death in 1968, Eva’s teenage sons discovered a treasure trove of her life story. In a huge pine box that she had nailed shut, she placed scores of her drawings; family photographs; diary entries; newspaper clippings; and hundreds of letters related to her life and work that she received from curators, gallery owners, friends, and teachers over the years. Drawing on this rich and invaluable archive, as well as on interviews with family members, Rudnick tells the story of Eva’s brilliant but brief and impactful career as a Taos Pueblo artist, along with the story of the artistic legacy carried on by her son Jonathan Warm Day Coming.