The Taos News - Artes 2023

G.I. Gertie

EVA MIRABAL: THE FIRST PUBLISHED NATIVE FEMALE CARTOONIST

- BY SCOTT GERDES

Eva Mirabal: the first published Native female cartoonist

Eva Mirabal (her preferred name is Eah Ha Wa, which means “fast growing corn” in Tewa tongue) was born in Taos Pueblo in 1920, and at a very young age was introduced to some of the area’s most prolific artists. Her father, Pedro Beaded Shirt Mirabal, was a favorite portrait subject for Russian painter Nicolai Fechin and printmaker Joseph Imhof. Their creations inspired and excited the youngster who showed artistic talent early on. When she was just 19 years old, her work was included in a Chicago gallery’s exhibition.

The Santa Fe Indian School provided painting studies for Eah Ha Wa in the mid-1930s. It was apparent she had a flair for incorporat­ing the native forests, mountains and informal, ancestral ceremonies onto her paper canvases in a most delicate way. Eah Ha Wa mostly gravitated toward painting the daily life of Taos Pueblo’s inhabitant­s — taking particular care to decorative detail in depiction of traditiona­l dress, routine chores and everyday utensils, and in the area’s wildlife and vegetation. Her works in water-based paints employed warm, subtle colors even as she gravitated from a more traditiona­l Native style to modernism. She also found herself being drawn to cartooning, which began as doodles.

SERVING HER COUNTRY

Even though Eah Ha Wa believed being an artist was a realistic, attainable career, she wasn’t content to sit along the sidelines painting and drawing when World War II broke out. As her oldest son, Taos Pueblo artist and storytelle­r Jonathan Warm Day Coming, tells it, the military recruited Native students at Santa Fe Indian School and he feels that is what possibly got her interested in the war effort.

Fairly certain her parents wouldn’t approve, on May 6, 1943, she secretly enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC).

A yellowed clipping from an unknown newspaper supplied by Warm Day Coming told a short story on Eah Ha Wa’s enlistment. The eldest of two daughters is quoted as saying because the family had no sons, she felt compelled to join the fight.

“My people,” she said, “are a proud people who use their hands to make strong their hold on the land. This is our soil, and we have sent more than 95 percent of our young men to fight.”

On Aug. 5, 1943, Eah Ha Wa was designated Occupation­al Specialty 296 (or artist) for the Army Air Force and assigned as a cartoonist while stationed at Wright-Patterson Field outside Dayton, Ohio, swiftly making her way to sergeant. The soles of her shoes never left stateside. Her artistic talents were best kept on United States soil.

Eah Ha Wa’s “G.I. Gertie” comic strip series — her first assignment — appeared in the WAC publicatio­n The Air WAC, making her the first published Native female cartoonist — not to mention one of the earliest American women to produce a comic strip. The strip put Gertie in all types of militaryre­lated situations, often comedic. Lesser known is that Eah Ha Wa also created War Bonds posters. One of her posters used by the military featured a Native man making smoke signals that spelled out “Buy War Bonds.” She also assisted in creating murals such as the 40-foot “A Bridge of Wings” at the world headquarte­rs of Air Service Command where she was stationed. It is a depiction of the improving relations between North and South America at the time. It still stands. She also assisted on murals at Pittsburgh’s Buhl Planetariu­m, the Santa Fe Indian School, the Veteran’s Hospital in Albuquerqu­e and Southern Illinois’ Shyrock Auditorium, where her deer adorn archways.

With help from the G.I. Bill, Eah Ha Wa later studied at the Taos Valley Art School. In 1946, she was the only woman to enter the First National Exhibition of Indian Painting at the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her entry was a painting of a Pueblo drummer. Her most praised piece is the 1940 tempera on paper work titled “Picking Wild Berries.” The painting was shown in a 1953 exhibit at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.

 ?? COURTESY JONATHAN WARM DAY COMING ??
COURTESY JONATHAN WARM DAY COMING
 ??  ??
 ?? C O U R T E S Y J O N A T H A N W A R M D A Y C O M I N G ?? ‘Picking Wild Berries’ (1940, tempera on paper) is one of Eah Ha Wa’s most admired paintings. She submitted this painting to a Museum of New Mexico competitio­n and was awarded the Margretta S. Dietrich Award. This piece was also selected by Dorothy Dunn to be in the ‘Contempora­ry American Indian Painting’ exhibition at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.
C O U R T E S Y J O N A T H A N W A R M D A Y C O M I N G ‘Picking Wild Berries’ (1940, tempera on paper) is one of Eah Ha Wa’s most admired paintings. She submitted this painting to a Museum of New Mexico competitio­n and was awarded the Margretta S. Dietrich Award. This piece was also selected by Dorothy Dunn to be in the ‘Contempora­ry American Indian Painting’ exhibition at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.

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