Description:
Watercolor on paper. Signed l.r.: Eah-ha-wa, Stamped u.r.: PLANCHE 46.
From: American Indian Painters, Vol. 2, p. 6: Eva Mirabal comes from Taos. She was born in that pueblo in 1921 and attended the Indian School in Santa Fe. He mural "Baking Bread" is in the social science classroom. She has painted others for private homes. She has been particularly interested in girl scout work and was camp counselor in a girls' summer camp in Kentucky. She is a dancer and active in tribal ceremonies. During the War, Eva Mirabal was a W.A.C. She painted several murals for the army. In 1946-47 she held the distinguished position as artist in residence at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. "Yucca Shampoo" is a small picture that Eva painted as a Christmas card. It is so exquisite in line and color that it is included in this work rather than a larger and stately composition of several figures. Eva uses only a few colors: the light brown of arm and neck, the earth brown of the pottery tub, the black of the long hair, the greens of the shirtwaist and of the yucca (used as soap by the Indians), the battleship grey of the Pueblo dress, the red of the sash, and the white buckskin of the wide puttee moccasins. The little personal affair of washing hair, as painted by Eva Mirabal, is as exquisite as a precious Moghul painting of the 15th century. (Collection, Oscar Brousse Jacobson)