Pamela Colman Smith drew the way a stage designer thinks. Her figures stand on a shallow strip of ground, framed by a border, lit by flat fields of colour and named by a hand-lettered title. That simple system carried her from hand-coloured picture books and a small-press magazine to the tarot deck she illustrated in 1909, whose scenes are still redrawn and recoloured more than a century later. For designers, Pamela Colman Smith is a lesson in building a large, consistent set of images from a handful of rules.
None of the three museum APIs used for this collection (the Met, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Cleveland Museum of Art) flags a Smith work as public domain, so this guide describes her work in words and the publisher uses a title card. For historic images you can study, browse the MGD museum inspiration collection.
Who was Pamela Colman Smith?
Smith was born in London in 1878 to American parents, and published biographies say she spent part of her childhood in Jamaica. By 1893 she was in Brooklyn, studying at the Pratt Institute. Pratt Institute Libraries, in their 2019 exhibition Pamela Colman Smith: Life and Work, and other published accounts say she trained there under Arthur Wesley Dow, the teacher whose ideas about line, mass and dark-and-light shaped a generation of American designers. If Dow’s approach interests you, the guide to Arthur Wesley Dow explains his system in detail.
Her own books followed quickly. The Met holds a copy of Widdicombe Fair, dated 1899, whose illustrations are lithographs coloured by pochoir, a stencil method that lays each colour down by hand. In the same year she published Annancy Stories, a book of Jamaican folk tales about Anansi the spider, and in 1905 a second collection, Chim-Chim. She also worked with the poet W. B. Yeats, who later wrote for her magazine.
The Green Sheaf: a magazine coloured by hand
In 1903 Smith launched The Green Sheaf, a small magazine she edited and illustrated. Toronto Metropolitan University Library describes thirteen numbers issued between 1903 and 1904, each hand-coloured by Smith, and King’s College London notes that the copies were coloured on hand-made paper, with contributors including Yeats, Edward Gordon Craig, Lady Gregory and John Masefield. The date of the last issue is uncertain: the 1890s.ca edition dates the run from January 1903 and gives reasons to place No. 13 around mid-1904. Smith then set up the Green Sheaf Press in 1904 to publish books.
For a designer the magazine is worth studying as a format. Each page is a small poster: a heavy black drawing, a block of type, and a few colours brushed in afterwards. Because every copy was coloured by hand, the line had to do most of the work, and the colour could vary slightly from copy to copy without breaking the design. That is the same logic as a modern two-colour risograph zine, where a strong key drawing holds the page together and the second colour adds mood.
Seeing music: the 291 exhibitions
In January 1907 Alfred Stieglitz showed Smith’s work at the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession at 291 Fifth Avenue in New York, until then a space for photographs. Camera Work, Stieglitz’s journal, reported a collection of seventy-two drawings, and the National Gallery of Art’s essay on the Stieglitz Key Set describes the same show of seventy-two drawings. Stieglitz showed her work again in 1908 and 1909. The guide to Alfred Stieglitz covers the gallery and its programme.
Many of these pictures were made while Smith listened to music, and the titles say so. The Smithsonian American Art Museum holds Overture. “Egmont” Beethoven (1907), in watercolour, brush and ink and pencil on paper, and the Stieglitz and O’Keeffe archive at Yale’s Beinecke Library holds sheets such as “Sonata No. 11 – Beethoven”, in watercolour on paper board. The Philadelphia Museum of Art lists prints made in 1907 by Stieglitz after Smith’s drawings. These works link her to Symbolism: they try to picture a mood or a sound rather than a scene.
The 1909 tarot: 78 cards as one system
In 1909 the writer Arthur Edward Waite asked Smith to illustrate a full tarot deck. The deck was published in London by William Rider & Son in December 1909, with Waite’s guide The Key to the Tarot, according to published histories of the deck. Many writers now call it the Waite–Smith tarot to credit both of them; later commercial editions use brand names that belong to their publishers, and this guide refers to the deck only editorially.
A tarot deck has 22 trump cards and 56 suit cards, and older decks often showed the numbered suit cards as plain arrangements of cups, coins, swords or batons. Smith gave every card a full scene with figures, a landscape or interior and a story. The result is a deck in which even the four of cups or the eight of swords is a small piece of theatre.
Look at how she kept 78 images consistent:
- A fixed frame. Every card has the same black border and a strip at the foot for the title, so the set reads as one family even when the scenes vary.
- A shallow stage. Figures stand near the front on a band of ground, with a simple backdrop of hills, sea or sky. It is the space of a toy theatre.
- A small palette. The early printings use a few flat colours inside black outlines, so each card can be read across a table.
- Hand lettering. The card titles and numbers were drawn by hand in a loose, rounded capital that matches the weight of the outlines. Her small monogram appears on the cards as a signature.
Technique: line first, colour second
Across her books, magazine and cards, Smith worked the same way. She drew a firm, even outline in ink, kept interior detail sparse, and treated colour as flat areas laid inside that outline, whether by stencil, by brush or by a commercial printer. Depth comes from overlapping shapes, not shading.
This method suits reproduction. A drawing built from strong outlines survives cheap printing, small sizes and recolouring, which helps explain why her tarot scenes could be reprinted and recoloured so many times. It is also close to the flat, outlined style of Art Nouveau graphic design, though Smith’s line is plainer and more folk-like than the curling ornament of a Mucha poster.
How designers can borrow from Pamela Colman Smith
The useful ideas are structural, not stylistic.
- Design the frame before the pictures. For any series, such as icons, cards, chapter openers or social tiles, fix the border, title band and margins first. Consistency then comes from the container, and each image can be freer.
- Use a shallow stage. Put the subject on a narrow foreground band with a simple backdrop. It reads quickly on small screens and printed cards.
- Limit the palette. Choose four or five flat colours and a black key, and repeat them across the set. You can build and test such a palette with the colour palette generator.
- Let the line carry the image. Check that your drawing still works in black and white before you add colour. If it does, it will survive recolouring, printing and resizing.
- Draw the lettering. A hand-drawn title, even a simple one, ties text and image together in a way a stock font rarely does.
- Tell a small story on every card. Smith’s suit cards work because each shows a moment: a figure walking away, a figure looking out to sea. Give each item in a set its own small action.
A note on rights: Smith’s original drawings, books and the many later editions of her tarot are held by different owners and publishers, and trade names for the deck are trademarks. Study the design ideas freely, but check the status of any specific edition or image before reproducing it.
Frequently asked questions
What is Pamela Colman Smith known for?
She is known for illustrating the 78 cards of the tarot deck published in London in 1909 with Arthur Edward Waite, often called the Waite–Smith tarot. She also illustrated books, edited and hand-coloured the magazine The Green Sheaf and showed music-inspired drawings at Alfred Stieglitz’s 291 gallery.
Where did Pamela Colman Smith study art?
She studied at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn from 1893, and published accounts, including Pratt Institute Libraries’ 2019 exhibition, say she trained under Arthur Wesley Dow.
What makes her tarot designs useful for designers?
They show how to keep a large set consistent: a fixed border and title band, a shallow stage-like space, a small palette of flat colours inside black outlines, and hand-drawn lettering, with a distinct scene on every card.
Where can I see Pamela Colman Smith’s original work?
Museum and library holdings include Overture. “Egmont” Beethoven at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, music drawings in the Stieglitz and O’Keeffe archive at Yale’s Beinecke Library, a copy of Widdicombe Fair at the Met, and copies of The Green Sheaf at King’s College London and Toronto Metropolitan University. Most are not on permanent display.
