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Pamela Colman Smith (16 February 1878 – 18 September 1951), nicknamed "Pixie", was a British artist, illustrator, writer, publisher, and occultist. She is best-known for illustrating the Rider–Waite tarot deck (also called the Rider–Waite–Smith or Waite–Smith deck) for
Arthur Edward Waite Arthur Edward Waite (2 October 1857 – 19 May 1942) was a British poet and scholarly mystic who wrote extensively on occult and esoteric matters, and was the co-creator of the Rider–Waite tarot deck (also called the Rider–Waite–Smith o ...
. This
tarot deck The tarot (, first known as '' trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a pack of playing cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Tarocchini. From their Italian roots, ...
became the standard among tarot card readers, and remains the most widely used today. Smith also illustrated over 20 books, wrote two collections of Jamaican folklore, edited two magazines, and ran the Green Sheaf Press, a
small press A small press is a publisher with annual sales below a certain level or below a certain number of titles published. The terms "indie publisher" and "independent press" and others are sometimes used interchangeably. Independent press is general ...
focused on women writers.


Biography

Smith was born at 28 Belgrave Road in
Pimlico Pimlico () is an area of Central London in the City of Westminster, built as a southern extension to neighbouring Belgravia. It is known for its garden squares and distinctive Regency architecture. Pimlico is demarcated to the north by Victor ...
, part of
central London Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local government. Its characteris ...
. She was the only child of an
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
merchant from
Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
,
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
(before it was part of
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
), Charles Edward Smith (son of Brooklyn mayor Cyrus Porter Smith), and his wife Corinne Colman (sister of the painter
Samuel Colman Samuel Colman (March 4, 1832 – March 26, 1920) was an American painter, interior designer, and writer, probably best remembered for his paintings of the Hudson River. Life and career Born in Portland, Maine, Colman moved to New York City ...
). The family was based in
Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...
for the first decade of Smith's life, but they moved to Jamaica when Charles Smith took a job in 1889 with the West India Improvement Company (a financial syndicate involved in extending the Jamaican railroad system). The Smiths lived in the capital, Kingston, for several years, travelling to London and New York. By 1893, Smith had moved to Brooklyn, where, at the age of 15, she enrolled at the
Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was founded in 1887 ...
, which had been founded six years earlier. There she studied art under
Arthur Wesley Dow Arthur Wesley Dow (1857 – December 13, 1922) was an American painter, printmaker, photographer and an arts educator. Early life Arthur Wesley Dow was born in Ipswich, Massachusetts, in 1857. Dow received his first art training in 1880 from An ...
, painter, print maker, photographer, and influential arts educator. Her mature drawing style shows clear traces of the visionary qualities of fin-de-siècle Symbolism and the
Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
of the preceding Arts and Crafts movement. While Smith was in art school, her mother died in Jamaica, in 1896. Smith herself was ill on and off during these years and in the end left Pratt in 1897 without a degree. She became an illustrator; some of her first projects included ''The Illustrated Verses of
William Butler Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...
'', a book on actress Dame
Ellen Terry Dame Alice Ellen Terry, (27 February 184721 July 1928), was a leading English actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born into a family of actors, Terry began performing as a child, acting in Shakespeare plays in London, and tour ...
by
Bram Stoker Abraham Stoker (8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912) was an Irish author who is celebrated for his 1897 Gothic horror novel '' Dracula''. During his lifetime, he was better known as the personal assistant of actor Sir Henry Irving and busi ...
, and two of her own books, ''Widdicombe Fair'' and ''Fair Vanity'' (a reference to ''
Vanity Fair Vanity Fair may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Literature * Vanity Fair, a location in '' The Pilgrim's Progress'' (1678), by John Bunyan * ''Vanity Fair'' (novel), 1848, by William Makepeace Thackeray * ''Vanity Fair'' (magazines), the ...
''). In 1899 her father died, leaving Smith at the age of 21 without either parent. She returned to England that year, continuing to work as an illustrator, and branching out into theatrical design for a miniature theatre. In London, she was taken under the wing of the Lyceum Theatre group led by Terry (who is said to have given her the nickname 'Pixie'),
Henry Irving Sir Henry Irving (6 February 1838 – 13 October 1905), christened John Henry Brodribb, sometimes known as J. H. Irving, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility ...
, and Bram Stoker and traveled with them around the country, working on costumes and stage design. In 1901, she established a studio in London and held a weekly open house for artists, authors, actors, and others involved with the arts.
Arthur Ransome Arthur Michell Ransome (18 January 1884 – 3 June 1967) was an English author and journalist. He is best known for writing and illustrating the ''Swallows and Amazons'' series of children's books about the school-holiday adventures of childre ...
, then in his early 20s, describes one of these "at home" evenings, and the curious artistic circle around Smith, in his 1907 ''
Bohemia in London ''Bohemia in London'' (1907) was Arthur Ransome's seventh published book, and his first success. The book is about literary and artistic London in the 1900s, and the area of London covered is Chelsea, Soho, and Hampstead. He had moved to London in ...
''. Smith wrote and illustrated two books about Jamaican folklore: ''Annancy Stories'' (1899) and ''Chim-Chim, Folk Stories from Jamaica'' (1905). These books included Jamaican versions of tales involving the traditional African folk figure
Anansi Anansi ( ; literally translates to ''spider'') is an Akan folktale character and the Akan God of Stories, Wisdom, Knowledge, and possibly creation. The form of a spider is the most common depiction of Anansi. He is also, sometimes considered t ...
the Spider. She also continued her illustration work, taking on projects for
William Butler Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...
and his brother, the painter
Jack Yeats Jack Butler Yeats RHA (29 August 1871 – 28 March 1957) was an Irish artist and Olympic medalist. W. B. Yeats was his brother. Butler's early style was that of an illustrator; he only began to work regularly in oils in 1906. His early pic ...
. She illustrated Bram Stoker's last novel, ''
The Lair of the White Worm ''The Lair of the White Worm'' is a horror novel by the Irish writer Bram Stoker. It was first published by Rider and Son of London in 1911 – the year before Stoker's death – with colour illustrations by Pamela Colman Smith. The story is ba ...
'' in 1911, and Ellen Terry's book on
Diaghilev Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪˈrɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), usually referred to outside Russia as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, pa ...
's
Ballets Russes The Ballets Russes () was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. ...
, ''The Russian Ballet'' in 1913. Smith supported the struggle for the right to vote, and through the Suffrage Atelier, a collective of professional illustrators, she contributed artwork to further the cause of women's suffrage in Great Britain. Additionally, Smith donated her services for more poster designs and toys to the Red Cross during World War I. In 1903, Smith launched her own magazine under the title ''The Green Sheaf'', with contributions by Yeats, Christopher St John (
Christabel Marshall Christabel Gertrude Marshall (aka Christopher Marie St John) (24 October 1871 – 20 October 1960) was a British campaigner for women's suffrage, a playwright and author. Marshall lived in a ménage à trois with the artist Clare Atwood and ...
), Cecil French, A. E. (
George William Russell George William Russell (10 April 1867 – 17 July 1935), who wrote with the pseudonym Æ (often written AE or A.E.), was an Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, painter and Irish nationalist. He was also a writer on mysticism, and a centr ...
), Gordon Craig (Ellen Terry's son), Dorothy Ward, John Todhunter, and others. ''The Green Sheaf'' survived for a little over a year, a total of 13 issues. Discouraged by ''The Green Sheaf's'' lack of financial success, Smith shifted her efforts towards setting up a
small press A small press is a publisher with annual sales below a certain level or below a certain number of titles published. The terms "indie publisher" and "independent press" and others are sometimes used interchangeably. Independent press is general ...
in London. In 1904, she established The Green Sheaf Press which published a variety of novels, poems, fairy tales, and folktales until at least 1906, mostly by women writers. In 1907,
Alfred Stieglitz Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was kno ...
gave an exhibition of Smith's paintings in New York at his Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession (also known as gallery 291), making Smith the first painter to have a show at what had been until then a gallery devoted exclusively to the photographic
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretica ...
. Stieglitz was intrigued by Smith's
synaesthetic Synesthesia (American English) or synaesthesia (British English) is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who rep ...
sensibility; in this period, Smith would paint visions that came to her while listening to music. The show was successful enough that Stieglitz issued a
platinum print Platinum prints, also called ''platinotypes'', are photographic prints made by a monochrome printing process involving platinum. Platinum tones range from warm black, to reddish brown, to expanded mid-tone grays that are unobtainable in silver ...
portfolio of 22 of her paintings and showed her work twice more, in 1908 and 1909. Some Smith works that did not sell remained with Stieglitz and ended up in the Stieglitz/
Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Ame ...
Archive at
Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...
. Yeats introduced Smith to the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn ( la, Ordo Hermeticus Aurorae Aureae), more commonly the Golden Dawn (), was a secret society devoted to the study and practice of occult Hermeticism and metaphysics during the late 19th and early 20th ...
, which she joined in 1901 and in the process met Waite. When the Golden Dawn splintered due to personality conflicts, Smith moved with Waite to the Independent and Rectified Rite of the Golden Dawn (or Holy Order of the Golden Dawn). In 1909, Waite commissioned Smith to produce a
tarot deck The tarot (, first known as '' trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a pack of playing cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Tarocchini. From their Italian roots, ...
with appeal to the world of art, and the result was the unique Waite–Smith tarot deck. Published by
William Rider & Son Rider is a publishing imprint of Ebury Publishing, a Penguin Random House division. The list was started by William Rider & Son in Britain in 1908 when he took over the occult publisher Phillip Wellby. The editorial director of the new list wa ...
of London, it has endured as the world's most popular 78-card tarot deck. The innovative cards depict full scenes with figures and symbols on all of the cards including the pips, and Smith's distinctive drawings have become the basis for the design of many subsequent packs. Apart from book illustration projects and the tarot deck, her art found little in the way of commercial outlets after her early success with Stieglitz in New York. Several examples of her works done in
gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache ...
were collected by her cousin, the American
Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a " consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and ...
actor
William Gillette William Hooker Gillette (July 24, 1853 – April 29, 1937) was an American actor-manager, playwright, and stage-manager in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best remembered for portraying Sherlock Holmes on stage and in a 1916 ...
, and may be found today prominently displayed in his castle in Connecticut. In 1911, Smith converted to Roman Catholicism. After the end of the
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, Smith received an inheritance from an uncle that enabled her to lease a house on the Lizard Peninsula in
Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a Historic counties of England, historic county and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people ...
, an area popular with artists. For income, she established a vacation home for Catholic priests in a neighboring house. Her longtime friend, Nora Lake, joined her in Cornwall and helped to run the vacation home. After several years of financial difficulty, Smith left the Lizard and relocated first to
Exeter Exeter () is a city in Devon, South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal comm ...
in 1939, and then to Bude in the early 1940s. Although she continued writing and illustrating, she was unable to find publishers for her work, likely due to changes in public taste following the First World War. Smith died in her apartment at the Bencoolen House in Bude on 18 September 1951. Her possessions were auctioned off to pay her debts. The location of her gravesite is unknown, but it is likely that she was buried in an unmarked grave in St. Michael's Cemetery in Bude.


Waite–Smith Tarot

The 78 illustrations that make up the Waite–Smith tarot deck "represent archetypal subjects that each become a portal to an invisible realm of signs and symbols, believed to be channeled through processes of divination." They are original works of art and unique in terms of the cards' stylization, draftsmanship, and composition, which is a significant aesthetic achievement. They are one of the best examples of Smith's imagination for fantasy, folly, ecstasy, death, and the macabre. When Smith's tarot was first published by Rider, in England, in December 1909, it was simply called ''Tarot Cards'' and it was accompanied by Arthur Edward Waite's guide entitled ''The Key to the Tarot''. The following year Waite added Smith's black-and-white drawings to the book and published it as ''
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot ''The Pictorial Key to the Tarot'' is a divinatory tarot guide, with text by A. E. Waite and illustrations by Pamela Colman Smith. Published in conjunction with the Rider–Waite tarot deck, the pictorial version (released 1910, dated 1911) ...
''. In 1971,
U.S. Games U.S. Games Corporation was a video game company founded by Donald Yu, which originally produced handheld electronic sports games. It pivoted to focus exclusively on video game software in 1981, and was acquired by cereal company Quaker Oats in 19 ...
bought the right to publish the deck and published it under the title ''The Rider Tarot Deck'' (because of differences in U.S. and U.K. copyright law, the extent of their copyright in the Waite–Smith deck is disputed). In later editions they changed the name to ''Rider Tarot'' and then ''Rider Waite Tarot''. Today most scholars, in order to recognize the importance of Smith's contribution, refer to the deck as the ''Waite–Smith Tarot''. Tarot writers often refer to the deck with the simple abbreviation of RWS, for Rider–Waite–Smith. In the century since the deck's first printing, there have been dozens of editions put out by various publishers; for some of these the Smith drawings were redrawn by other artists, and for others the cards were rephotographed to create new printing plates. Many versions have been recolored as the coloration is rather harsh in the original deck, due to the limitations of color printing at the time. One example is the 1968 Albano-Waite tarot, which has brighter colors overlaid on the same pen-and-ink drawings. Some recent U.S. Games editions have removed Smith's hand-drawn titles for each card, substituting text in a standard typeface. Altogether, these decks encompass the full range from editions very closely based on the original printings to decks that can at most be termed 'inspired' by the Waite–Smith deck. Waite is often cited as the designer of the Waite–Smith Tarot, but it would be more accurate to consider him as half of a design team, with responsibility for the major concepts, the structure of individual cards, and the overall symbolic system. Because Waite was not an artist himself, he commissioned Smith to create the actual deck. It is likely that Smith worked from Waite's written and verbal instructions rather than from sketches; that is, from detailed descriptions of the desired designs. This is how illustrators often work, and as a commercial illustrator, Smith would probably have been comfortable with such a working process. It appears that Waite provided detailed instructions mainly or exclusively for the
Major Arcana The Major Arcana are the named or numbered cards in a cartomantic tarot pack, the name being originally given by occultists to the trump cards of a normal tarot pack used for playing card games. There are usually 22 such cards in a standard 78-c ...
, and simple lists of meanings for the
Minor Arcana The Rider–Waite_Tarot.html"_;"title="King_of_Swords_card_from_the_Rider–Waite_Tarot">King_of_Swords_card_from_the_Rider–Waite_Tarot_ The_Minor_Arcana,_sometimes_Lesser_Arcana,_are_the_Suit_(cards).html" ;"title="Rider–Waite_Tarot_.html" ;" ...
or 'pip' cards. Thus the memorable scenes of the Minor Arcana owe largely to Smith's own invention. The Minor Arcana are indeed one of the notable achievements of this deck, as most earlier tarot decks (especially those of the Marseilles type) have extremely simple pip cards. Smith's innovative illustrations for the Minor Arcana, with their rich symbolism, made the Waite–Smith deck a widely imitated model for other tarot decks. Smith and Waite drew on a number of sources as inspirations for the deck's designs. In particular, it appears that Waite took his inspiration for the trumps mainly from the French ''
Tarot of Marseilles The Tarot of Marseilles is a standard pattern of Italian-suited tarot pack with 78 cards that was very popular in France in the 17th and 18th centuries for playing tarot card games and is still produced today. It was probably created in Milan befo ...
'' (although the oldest date from the 16th century, his model was possibly a Marseilles deck from the 18th century). It is not unlikely that other Marseilles-type Italian tarot decks from the 18th or 19th century were used as additional models. For the pips, it appears that Smith drew mainly on the 15th century Italian '' Sola Busca tarot''; Place, Robert M. (2005) ''The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination'', Tarcher/Penguin, New York, 2005, pages 177-186 the 3 of Swords, for example, clearly shows the congruity between the two decks. In addition, there is evidence that some figures in the deck are portraits of Smith's friends, notably actresses
Ellen Terry Dame Alice Ellen Terry, (27 February 184721 July 1928), was a leading English actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born into a family of actors, Terry began performing as a child, acting in Shakespeare plays in London, and tour ...
(the Queen of Wands) and Florence Farr (the
World In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...
). Smith completed the art for the deck in the six months between April and October 1909. This is a short period of time for an artist to complete some 80 pictures (the number claimed by Smith in a letter to Stieglitz in 1909 and corresponding almost exactly to the standard 78-card tarot deck). The illustrations were most likely done in pen and ink, possibly over a pencil underdrawing; the original drawings are lost so this cannot be determined with certainty at present. They were either colored with watercolor by Smith or colored by someone else after the fact.


Posthumous exhibitions

An exhibition of Smith's art entitled ''To All Believers—The Art of Pamela Colman Smith'' was held in the United States in 1975. It was sponsored by the
University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially UD or Delaware) is a public land-grant research university located in Newark, Delaware. UD is the largest university in Delaware. It offers three associate's programs, 148 bachelor's programs, 121 ma ...
and the
Delaware Art Museum The Delaware Art Museum is an art museum located on the Kentmere Parkway in Wilmington, Delaware, which holds a collection of more than 12,000 objects. The museum was founded in 1912 as the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts in honor of the artis ...
in association with the Delaware chapter of The Victorian Society in America. The exhibition was held at the Delaware Art Museum from 11 September to 19 October, and at the Art Museum, Princeton University, from 4 November to 7 December. An exhibition, ''Georgia O'Keeffe and the Women of the Stieglitz Circle'', was held in 2007–2008. It was at three museums: the
Georgia O'Keeffe Museum The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is dedicated to the artistic legacy of Georgia O'Keeffe, her life, American modernism, and public engagement. It opened on July 17, 1997, eleven years after the artist's death. It comprises multiple sites in two loca ...
in Santa Fe, New Mexico; the
High Museum of Art The High Museum of Art (colloquially the High) is the largest museum for visual art in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta, Georgia (on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district), the High is 312,000 square feet (28, ...
in Atlanta, Georgia; and the San Diego Museum of Art in San Diego, California. The exhibition included works by Smith and other women artists who were active in the art and photography scene prior to O'Keeffe. Their works help to put O'Keeffe's art in the context of the time. The exhibition was based on the scholarly book ''Modernism and the Feminine Voice: O'Keeffe and the Women of the Stieglitz Circle'' by Kathleen Pyne, which contains a chapter on Smith. In 2019, the Brooklyn Campus of the Pratt Institute Libraries held an exhibition of Smith's work entitled ''Pamela Colman Smith: Life and Work''. The exhibition included books, prints, reproductions of paintings and illustrations, tarot decks, and photographs.


References


External links


American Women in the Arts

Bryn Mawr College Library Special Collections


* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Pamela Colman 1878 births 1951 deaths American occultists British occultists Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn Tarotologists American women illustrators American illustrators American graphic designers British graphic designers Women graphic designers American women writers British women writers Pratt Institute alumni Artists from London Burials in Cornwall English expatriates in the United States Symbolist artists British Roman Catholics American Roman Catholics Converts to Roman Catholicism 19th-century women writers 19th-century American women artists 19th-century British women artists