The Pamela Colman Smith Commemorative Set

Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Rider-Waite Deck, the Pamela Colman Smith Commemorative set will be cherished by all tarot collectors and art lovers. The deluxe set includes the Smith-Waite Centennial Tarot Deck and two books; The Artwork and Times of Pamela Colman Smith, by Stuart R. Kaplan, with over 100 examples of her non-tarot art, and The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite, in a new format. The Smith-Waite Centennial Edition Tarot Deck is reproduced from the original 1909 deck and comes with a 78-card deck with drawstring organza bag. The set also includes: 2 prints of Pamela Colman Smith, one photo and one self-portrait, both 5” x 7” suitable for framing; six color postcards of artwork by Pamela Colman Smith; and Spread Sheet Guide. Everything is attractively packaged in a deluxe keepsake case.

Specs

•  US Games 
• Size Case measures 5.25" x 7.25" x 3" ;
• Cards measure 2.75" x 4.75"
• Language EN Author Stuart R. Kaplan, Lynn Araujo
• Artist Pamela Colman Smith

Artist

Pamela Coleman Smith was an artist, illustrator, and writer. Born in Pimlico, Middlesex (now London), Smith was the daughter of American merchant Charles Edward Smith and Corinne Colman. Smith’s life was often very transitory. Her father’s job with the West India Improvement Company stationed the family throughout Europe and North America’s eastern coast, and after her mother’s death when Smith was ten she was taken in by family friends who performed in the Lyceum traveling theatre.

In 1893, Smith moved to Brooklyn to be with her father. There, at age 15, she enrolled at the relatively new Pratt Institute and studied art under Arthur Wesley Dow. After her graduation four years later she returned to England, where she became an illustrator and theatrical designer.

Smith wrote and illustrated several books, and designed the Rider-Waite-Smith deck of Tarot cards for Arthur Edward Waite in 1909—designs still used today.

In 1909, Waite paid Smith a flat fee for illustrating his Tarot deck. He chose Pamela for the job because of her talent, their common membership in the Golden Dawn, and because he believed her clairvoyant abilities would help her perceive the higher mystical truths he was attempting to convey with his deck. She not only didn’t benefit financially from the deck, but the publisher’s name was put on the deck instead of hers. Recently, the tarot community has been correcting this injustice by referring to the deck as the Rider Waite Smith (RWS) or Waite Smith deck (WS).

She never married. After the end of the First World War, Smith received an inheritance that enabled her to move to Cornwall, an area popular with artists. She died in Bude, Cornwall on the 18th of September, 1951.