Waite's book was illustrated with designed images done by Pamela Coleman Smith, who was born in 1878 in England to American parents. She took formal art training at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, graduating in 1887. She returned to England where she became a theatrical designer and an illustrator (mainly for books, pamphlets and poster). Her circle of friends included the Yeats brothers and other theatrical and literary personalities of that time period. Around 1903 she joined the Order of the Golden Dawn and began to paint visions that came to her while listening to classical music. She realized little success in writing and illustrating books. She opened a small shop specializing in hand colored prints and illustrations, but that proved financially unsuccessful as well. Her luck changed in 1907 when her work was selected as the first non-photographic work to be featured in the Little Gallery of the Photo-Secession on Madison Avenue by Alfred Stieglitz. In 1909 she undertook, for token payment from Alfred E. Waite, a series of 78 black and white line drawings as a rectified Tarot pack. The designs were published the same year by William Rider and Son, it is not certain if Smith or Rider assigned the original colorings hues of ambers and reds to the drawings. Despite further attempts to write manuscripts and illustrate books, most of her works were never published ... and she failed to realize any commercial success with her artwork. She died a spinster in 1951, penniless and obscure ... no memorial service, no funeral procession, her grave site location remains unknown. All of her personal possessions were sold at an auction -- everything going to strangers -- so much of her work has all but disappeared.
Pamela Coleman Smith would all be forgotten except for the 78 paintings known to compromise the Rider-Waite deck has allowed her to be known to millions. Her work later influenced many latter designed decks that are on the market with the introduction of the use of pictures on the minor arcana pip cards to illustrate their divinatory meanings. This, along with its colorful style, helped make this subsequent deck one of the most popular ones in existence, but in 1920, the Rider (publisher)-Waite deck was highly criticized for changing some of the trump cards (i.e. The Sun card had commonly featured two figures holding hands in a garden, Waite's cards changed it to one child on horseback outside of the garden's wall) stating that he was altering cards original depiction and meanings to suit his definitions - and yes, he was known to be opinionated. BUT in the Visconti-Sforza deck, The Sun card seems to be closer to Waite's version, a single child flying thru the air holding up a globe with an image of a city in it.
But one cannot overlook the striking change that Smith and Waite did by having a pictorial scene on ALL cards. Who decided to go this route ?? -- Did Waite conceive this idea and images for the Minor Arcana cards himself? If so - then why does his own book make little or no substantial usage of the pictures? Was Pamela Coleman Smith given free reign and simply invent the scenery herself? If so , then there is a note of controversy there also since the 6 of swords picture or artistic depictions seems to suggest far more than Waite's stated meaning ... where as the 2 of swords' illustration seems to contradict his stated meaning.
Waite was not only a member of the Golden Dawn at one time, but also a mystic/occultist/ and a student of magick and esoteric practices - thus believed that his deck to be right and others prior to have been in err because it was based upon on his deep personal experience of enlightenment. (I have to resist the urge to add on there "so...nani nani booboo!!!") And yet, he is also noted for saying that divination is a degenerative use of the cards.
Still using Bembo's name for the artist of the Visconti-Sforza deck, back around the mid-1400's, the artist seemed to have created an archetype - wether consciously or from a deep instinct. The images have been changed and elaborated upon over the years that have followed by various artists. The cards images fascinate and open up to us in a way that cannot be explained easily but to be experienced. Most decks vary little from the Visconti-Sforza deck :
Then Pamela Coleman Smith's influence/artistry gave us more images to allow us to work on our subconscious and apply our experience to ... as almost all decks later developed had ALL cards pictorially depicted with scenery drawn heavily from the Rider-Waite deck as a basis per se.
No ... I realize that the "history" of the Tarot doesn't end here. Since the Rider-Waite deck's appearance on the market, there have since been many other decks introduced.
Aleister Crowley's Thoth Deck appeared in 1940 ... The Mother Peace Deck was a round deck design with no reverse imagery introduced in 1970's ... The Voyager Deck was a collage theme deck introduced in the 1980's ... The Osho Zen deck had renamed suits and trumps ... etc. To date there are over 150 decks available for one to purchase. Many decks, such as the Salvador Dali deck, are collectibles ... yet in one's hands able to allow a picture to truly say a thousand words ....
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Last updated October, 1997
In 1910, Alfred E. Waite wrote "The Pictorial Key To The Tarot" in which
© Carol aka Secretive
Lilith Silverhair