Pamela Colman Smith never became well-known as an artist and, without the Tarot deck she illustrated, she may have fallen into total obscurity. Stuart Kaplan, president of U.S. Games, Inc. says he could have made her a millionaire.
The only comment from Pixie Smith about the creation of the tarot deck was in a letter to her mentor Alfred Stieglitz (click on the letter to see a larger version).
You can see much of the artwork of Pamela Colman Smith at these sites (thanks especially to Roppo and Holly Voley for their efforts to make Pixie’s work available to the rest of us):
• The Works of Pamela Colman Smith – page 1
• The Works of Pamela Colman Smith – page 2
• The Occult Review advertisements for the RWS deck and early card reproductions.
• A Portrait of William Butler Yeats by PCS
• The Shakespeare’s Heroines Poster
• A Variety of Works by Pamela Colman Smith from Holly Voley’s site
Including my own copy of her book Chim-Chim: Folk Stories from Jamaica
• Susan and the Mermaid, an illustrated children’s story by PCS, republished by Corinne Kenner
• Tales for Philip and Peter, illustrated by PCS
• The Pamela Colman Smith Collection at Bryn Mawr
• Paintings at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library – search on Pamela+Smith, and while you are there, see their collection of 15th century Tarot cards by searching on Tarot.
• K. Frank Jensen’s Waite-Smith Tarot Research
• Here’s an outstanding website by Phil Norfleet devoted to PCS with a lot of biographical information not found anywhere else.
• See Pixie’s artwork archived at Ellen Terry’s home, Smallhythe – here.
• Pixie’s very own MySpace page where you can become her friend! Includes lots of her drawings and the music that inspired her.
You can order the illustrated The Story of the Waite-Smith Tarot by K. Frank Jensen – here.
Articles by and about PCS can be found by searching The Craftsman – here (search on her name).
• Pamela Colman Smith & “De Six Poach Eggs” (story)
Video by the Japanese collector of the works of Pamela Colman Smith, Roppo (see links above):
Correction to video: I don’t know of any evidence that suggests that PCS was adopted by her parents. However, she did become the foster daughter of the great actress, Ellen Terry.
See my post on Pixie’s instructions for reading the cards here. Let me know if I’ve missed anything and I’ll add it to the above list.
Mary K. Greer has made tarot her life work. Check here for reports of goings-on in the tarot world, articles on the history and practice of tarot, and reviews. Contact me
20 comments
Comments feed for this article
April 17, 2008 at 8:08 am
Craig Conley
Pamela’s letter to her mentor is heartbreaking. An artist of such vision and talent, yet so destitute and desperate, crying out for money she had already earned but never been paid! Of course, hers was and is a common predicament in the world of artists (or, I should say, for the artists of the world).
April 17, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Tania
There is mention of 80 designs! I wonder what the other 2 pieces were?!!!
Love the blog by the way! Fantastic.
April 18, 2008 at 12:49 am
marygreer
Craig –
The attitude in that day was that women in professions were taking employment away from men who needed to support their families. There was a serious, though unacknowledged, surplus of ‘spinsters,’ and no one knew what to do with them. Stieglitz’s own attitude seemed to be that it was crass to discuss money—of course he had enough to think so.
Tania –
One of the designs would have been that for the back of the card—alternating roses and lilies like what appears on the so-called “Original Waite” edition (the faces were taken from a later printing known as Pamela C). Pamela may also have created a title or info card that was never used. Decks are printed on large sheets that are later cut apart, so there is actually room for 80 cards. Alignment of a back-design with borders becomes difficult and so the roses-and-lilies back has rarely been used. The blue plaid (taroteé) design one usually sees is not so finicky in printing alignment, it doesn’t reveal reversals, and it doesn’t show scuff marks and scratches. Some of the earliest decks have what’s been called a “brown pebble” back. You can see a collection of card backs here.
Mary
May 28, 2009 at 9:26 am
Richard Davis McLeod
I notice that the nickname given Pamela Colman Smith by Ellen Terry, “Pixie” is being used more and more today by writers when in reference to PCS rather than her given name.
I wonder if this was a nickname she either “liked” or “just put up with”. I say this because information indicates that people oftentimes did not take her seriously as she appeared “childlike”. I know that just because a person appears “childlike”, the person is not necessarily an adult also, but rather such individuals are just fortunate enough in addition to having become an adult, also fortunate enough to maintain a sense of “childlike” innocence.
In Smith’s poem “Alone”, her feelings about her association with other people definitely gave her the feeling that she was really never taken seriously by the fellow adults with whom she worked. She apparently never had any further associations, with those influential adults from Steiglitz to Ellen Terry who gave her the nickname of “Pixie” years earlier when PCS was desperately trying to establish herself as a serious artist.
I don’t ever notice PCS being referred to as “Pixie” in any references of her later life, after leaving the art world she worked with until her conversion to Catholicism around 1913. Her later associations were primarily with the small Catholic community that attended the Masses held at the Chapel she had built in her home, named, “Our Lady of the Lizard”. There is one reference where she ran from the presence of William Butler Yeats, but that has never been explained as to what the complete situation was really all about that day in her life.
I know how undesirable nicknames, regardless of how “cute” they may seem, are not a welcome attribute to the beneficiary. Any ideas from fellow readers on just what PCS really thought of the nickname “Pixie”, and was that nickname a possible insight as to why she was never really taken seriously in the Art World and her retreat to her own world at her home in England with a private Catholic Chapel for last 35 years of her life? Richard McLeod
November 29, 2009 at 1:47 pm
mkg
Richard – I apologize for having overlooked this comment from you. I have no idea whether PCS liked the name Pixie or not. With her interest in story-telling for children, making children’s toys to raise money for the war effort, and dressing up as both a gypsy and a Jamaican story-teller, I would think she would encourage the nickname in informal settings, although obviously not in her professional life. She was described by many as being very humorous. Perhaps she left the name behind when she set up the retreat for priests, however, even then she was unconventional in that she illustrated the outside of her home and chapel despite the protests of her neighbors.
March 19, 2010 at 3:21 am
Alex
I have been researching the work of Pamela Coleman Smith with special attention to her Tarot designs for the Waite Rider Pack.
I have noticed that she does not use blue in any of the designs. Is there anybody out there who may either know the reason why or who may be able to suggest a reason for this?
Many thanks
Alex
March 20, 2010 at 1:22 pm
mkg
Alex -
There is a lot of blue in the RWS tarot deck. See the images on this post which were taken from a Pamela A (1909/10) tarot deck:
http://marygreer.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/grail-myths-in-the-minor-arcana-cups/
May 30, 2010 at 11:25 am
TDA
I owned one of the replica tarot card that she paint, I get this card as a pressent for my birthday, from my father lovers, she found this card in amsterdam at himalaya store,
At the first time, the store won’t allowed her to buy this card, bcose this is the only replica cards they have, but after long negosiaton, she get the card, and now the replica card is my and I use it this lovely card to help other solving they problem,, I really love this card so much, I give name for this card, his name is “tee”
I’m so lucky having one of the replica RWS card.. And this is my treasure
May 30, 2010 at 12:19 pm
mkg
TDA – Isn’t it wonderful when you find a tarot deck that you really connect with!
February 19, 2011 at 9:39 pm
Jan
Those were really great designs! My favorite is the Strength and Magician, what about you?
June 10, 2011 at 6:49 am
show plates
wonderful days and wonderful designs.
August 2, 2011 at 8:52 pm
auntiecarol69
Its a darn shame to put it extremely mildly how such a talented artist as Pamela Colman Smith was treated by the art establishment in the UK. OTOH she’s probably get the same or very similar treatment in the US. I mean taking work from men. Give me a break. Women back then and now deserve work. Wish you well, Mary, here on wordpress.com
I’m on wordpress.com
August 23, 2011 at 6:32 pm
Paul Nagy
Mary: I was curious if you have seen the relative scarce study of PCS: by Melinda Boyd Parsons: “To All Believers: the Art of Pamela Colman Smith: [Exhibition] Delaware Art Museum, September 11-October 19, 1975, the Art Museum, Princeton University, November 4-December 7, 1975? Have you ever seen a copy?
August 23, 2011 at 7:00 pm
mkg
Paul -
Yes, I have a copy. Is there something in particular that you wanted to know about it?
October 14, 2011 at 12:47 am
Alma Carey
I’m so happy to see this site on Pamela Colman Smith.
November 12, 2011 at 2:51 am
Aqua Shamanic Tarot Artist | Mystic Medusa
[...] Sadly, she was apparently not cut into the any of the income flow from the Waite Tarot deck or else she would not have lived in such impoverished circumstances at the end of her life. Heaps more info re her and the set she was in here. [...]
November 27, 2011 at 1:22 pm
almablanca
Love her soft brush strokes. Very feminine. A hero for women. Her life was typical of the destitution many women of her era suffered. Mary K is also one of my heroes for her lovely and informative work with the Tarot.
February 12, 2013 at 10:13 am
Sonja Wells
Hello Mary, I was born on September 18, 1951 and had been trying to find out more about Pamela Coleman Smith before the internet…to find very little. This is very exciting, sends a tingle down my spine to see her artwork beyond the Tarot deck…thank you all for this information.
April 23, 2013 at 5:04 am
Anita Dianne Dunne
Would have loved to have met her. Such a talented and interesting
person. so sorry she was used so badly. At least everyone knows the truth now.
April 23, 2013 at 8:39 am
Renna Shesso
Richard, you wondered if PCS wasn’t taken seriously due to her nickname “Pixie.” Speaking from a background in galleries, antique art and collectors, I can tell you that illustrators in general often went (and still go) unacknowledged. Her gender and nickname were just icing on the metaphorical cake of artistic obscurity. For example, we’ve all heard of Currier and Ives, but they were publishers, while Fanny Palmer and other artists were their illustrators.
The irony, of course, is that PCS is now one of the best known and most influential artists in the TAROT world while STILL being little known within the ART world. People who know of Alfred Stieglitz may never have encountered PCS – not surprising, since so much of her work was in illustration and stage design, which aren’t perceived to be in the same lofty (aka snobbish?) class as gallery-&-museum “fine art”. (That has also been the fate of photography, ceramics, fiber arts, anything classified as a practical craft, although this attitude has been very gradually shifting over the last few decades.)
The Georgie O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, NM, included PCS in a recent exhibit, “Georgia O’Keeffe and the Women of the Stieglitz Circle” (9/21/07 – 1/13/08). Her association with Stieglitz gives her a resurrected art-world credibility, but most people who saw her work at O’K had no idea of the scope of her impact on tarot art. http://www.okeeffemuseum.org/more-past-exibits.html
Pamela Colman Smith: the most influential unknown artist in the world?