Juan Mirabal
Juan Mirabal | |
|---|---|
| Born | Juan Mirabal, Tapaiu or Red Dancer 1903 |
| Died | 1981 (aged 77–78) |
| Nationality | murals |
| Movement | Modern art and Cubism |
Juan Mirabal (1903 – 1981), also known as "Tapaiu" or Red Dancer, was an artist from Taos Pueblo, New Mexico.
Three Taos Pueblo painters
Occasionally Mirabal modeled for Taos artists. As an artist, he was a realist painter and muralist. His inspiration and subject matter was the pueblo, people and landscape of the Taos Pueblo lands. His was the longest painting career of the three men.[1]
Taos Pueblo
Located in a tributary valley off the
For centuries, Pueblo painters have painted in tempera, clay slips, and earth pigments on woven textiles, interior walls, ceramics, and hides.[3] Looking Elk, Albert Lujan, and Juan Mirabal adopted and mastered European painting materials and techniques.[4]
Beginning of his artistic career
Mirabal began painting under the tutelage of Marjorie Eaton and later after serving in the U.S. Army during WW II, studied in the late 1940s with Louis Leon Ribak, a Taos modernist painter who ran an art school after the end of World War II. Unlike other established painters from the Taos Pueblo, Mirabal was low-key. He did not have a shop in the pueblo, but he built a following of people who visited him and likely purchased his paintings.[4]
Professional career
Mirabal was ground-breaking in his realistic depiction of pueblo ceremonial dances. He was influenced by modern art and by the 1930s Cubism. Marjorie Eaton, a painter schooled in modernism in Europe, came to Taos in the late 1920s and lived there in the early 1930s. Of the same age, Eaton befriended Juan and he became her model, student and dear friend. She is the one who taught him the basics of modernism prior to his studies with Louis Leon Ribak. Mirabal painted many murals, a large mural still exists in a home that is now the Adobe & Pines Inn Bed & Breakfast. Mirabal is known for the liveliness that he brought to his work, both in composition and color.[4]
Mirabal's Taos Pueblo painting inspired the following poem, by Enrique Pinedo, a student of Lawrence Intermediate School.
- Taos Pueblo
- The ground was rough under my feet.
- The man was getting some wood.
- The mountain looks like black paper.
- The people look like Eskimos.
- I smell honey in the village.
- It sounds like drums beating and singing.[5]
References
- ^ a b "Taos Pueblo Artists". Taos Pueblo. Archived from the original on 2011-09-07. Retrieved 2011-05-30.
- ^ "About". Taos Pueblo. Archived from the original on 2011-04-24. Retrieved 2011-05-30.
- ^ "Artists of the Taos Pueblo". Taos Pueblo. Retrieved 2011-05-29.
- ^ a b c Witt, D (2003). "Three Taos Pueblo Painters". Traditional Fine Art Online, Inc. Archived from the original on 2011-07-03. Retrieved 2011-05-30.
- ^ "Taos Pueblo, Poetry Inspired by the Avery Collection". The Avery Collection. The University of Arizona. Retrieved 2011-05-30.
Further reading
- Nickens, P; Nickens, K (2008). Pueblo Indians of New Mexico. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-4836-4.
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