Pamela Colman Smith

Pamela Colman Smith 1878-1951
Pamela Colman Smith may not be a name familiar to most, but her illustrations are arguably some of the most viewed and influential images of the past 100 years. She also was one of the century's great characters who was little noticed in her own time, although the company she kept included such heavyweights as Alfred Stieglitz, W.B. Yeats, and the famous occult group The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Colman Smith was born in England to a white American father and a black Jamaican mother. When her mother died when Smith was only 10, her father sent her to travel with an acting troupe with which she lived until 15. She later attended the Pratt institute and became a professional illustrator, and was represented by the famed photographer and art agent, Alfred Stieglitz.

Colman Smith was not only an artist, but a larger than life figure. An independent woman of eccentric dress and company, she lived part of her life alone in an apartment in London when such a lifestyle would have been considered outrageous even for a man. Colman Smith was involved heavily in researching the occult and associated herself with some of the major players in the nascent esoterica movements that what would later mutate into the New Age movements of the mid to late 20th century. Colman Smith died in relative obscurity in her 70s, but her work as one of the 20th century's great illustrators has grown considerably over the years.

Although Colman Smith was a published illustrator and writer, she is most famous for her design of the Rider Waite Smith tarot deck, first published 1909. Colman Smith was commissioned by fellow Golden Dawn Member Arthur Edward Waite to illustrate his new revised edition of the standard Tarot deck. Her illustrations would prove highly influential and serve as the iconographic standard for many subsequent versions of Waite's deck.

Although her work adopts the sinuous line of Aubrey Beardsley and combines it with the flat, vivid color of Caldecott, it is her efficient, economical line that really sets her apart from her contemporaries. There is a strong influence of early German woodcuts and Japanese Ukiyo-e prints that create a bold and strong quality to her work. It is this quality - simple and sure, yet sensual and vibrant - that helps make her images so iconic.

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