The Original "Pixie" Dream Girl
Celebrating Tarot Illustrator, Pamela Colman Smith
As February 16 marks her 147th birthday, we at Grimrose Manor want to honor the memory of Pamela Colman Smith (1878 -1951). She is best known as the illustrator of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot, which was published in 1909—but her life was a most fascinating one.
Colman Smith was born to an American father and Jamaican mother, who both passed away by the time she reached age 21. She lived all around the world, spending her childhood in Jamaica, attending art school in Brooklyn, New York, and as an adult, settling back in England where she was born.
She was a prolific commercial artist, getting her first exhibition in Brooklyn at age 19 and illustrating more than 20 books. She had several successful exhibitions at Alfred Stieglitz’s gallery (the first non-photographer to do so), and launched a magazine dedicated to women’s writing.
Nicknamed “Pixie” by actress and friend Ellen Terry, she was essentially adopted by a bohemian theatre troupe, for whom she designed stages and sets. She worked with Bram Stoker, and published two volumes of her own folk tales—of which her own performances at events and parties were considered masterful.
Pixie discovered she had sound-color synesthesia, or the ability to visualize music, and many of her works were inspired by, and named after, classical works.
She was once imprisoned for involvement in the suffrage movement and was friends with all the mystics, queers, and outsiders—including fellow suffragist Edith “Edy” Craig, who lived in a long-term triad with a married couple. While Pixie’s sexual orientation is unknown, she never married and lived for decades with her widowed companion, Nora Lake.
While Pixie’s tarot deck wasn’t the first—her work clearly references the Sola Busca tarot, which was on display at the British Museum in 1907—it was the first to feature illustrations on all 78 cards, rather than just the 22 Major Arcana. Unfortunately, she was poorly compensated despite completing the work in six months, and told Stieglitz in a letter that it was “a big job for very little cash.”
To see more of her illustrations, I highly recommend the 2018 book, Pamela Colman Smith: The Untold Story by R. Kaplan Stuart. The first 90 pages or so are biographical and the rest of the 440-page tome is dedicated to her body of artwork.
Sadly, a few years after creating her famous deck, Pamela Colman Smith would essentially quit the art world. Pixie lived to age 73 in a home bought with an inheritance from her uncle and is buried in an unmarked grave. Her name was only recently added to what had been previously known as the Rider-Waite deck—but we’re so pleased by this resurgence of well-deserved recognition. Long live Pixie’s memory!
For further reading:
Thank you for sharing Smith's story. I appreciate these posts on tarot history.
fascinating!!!