"Pamela Colman Smith" March 5, 2009 Having learned it is National Women's History Month, I'm going to feature women in all my portraiture this month. Following a link from a link, I came across Pamela Colman Smith, the artist who designed the Waite-Smith tarot deck. Of course, that is not all she did, and I sought out more of her work. The Wiki author states that her art had "little commercial success". Pamela Colman Smith did have her illustrations in in quite a few books and other places. But however well published she was, didn't necessarily mean she was PAID DECENTLY for her efforts: She complains to her mentor Alfred Stieglitz: "I've just finished a big job for very little cash, a set of designs for a pack of tarot cards 80 designs..." Mary Greer has the complete letter as well as a good overview and links to her gathered artwork. Koretaka Eguchi's site is an especially good source of her images. He shows what one critic of her time said, "the cleverness of Aubrey Beardsley without his coarseness". Indeed, many of her pieces have that Beardsleyan flavor:

These two examples adapted from those at http://www7.ocn.ne.jp/~elfindog/pcsworks.htm

But there's quite a variety of styles, and I'm glad to learn more about an artist who would otherwise be a complete unknown were it not for that poorly paid tarot card work. The photo of her at Wikipedia shows her to have a charming, playful and maybe even mischievous smile, so I gave her features a quick try.