Today, the Smith-Waite Tarot is the most iconic, recognisable and widely used tarot deck, having sold over 100 million copies worldwide. Initially known as the Rider-Waite after Rider, who published it, and Edward Arthur Waite (1857-1942), who commissioned it. The deck is now rightly known as The Smith-Waite, acknowledging the contribution of the enigmatic, industrious, talented artist, illustrator and performer Pamela Colman Smith (1878-1951), without whose vibrant, theatrical illustrations the deck would never have risen to such mythic status.
In this era of fore-fronting previously under-appreciated female artists, it is disappointing that a recent exhibition preview of Tarot: Origins and Afterlives at The Warburg Institute name-checks Waite but omits Colman Smith. Admittedly, art history and academia came late to the party; however, in recent years, with an explosion of interest in spirituality, women artists and occult art, the deck and its authors have been rigorously examined by numerous academics and art historians in all manner of biographies, guides and decoding of the cards.
Amongst the texts analysing the Smith-Waite, the focus is on the figures, the emblems, and iconography, while less attention is given to the lush, bucolic landscapes. It is widely acknowledged that the scenery is influenced by the countryside of South East England, Kent and East Sussex. Stuart Kaplan(Kaplan 2018) appears to have been the first to explore this connection, while Marcus Katz and Tali Goodwin, authors of Secrets of the Smith-Waite(Katz 2015), provide a more thorough examination.
Many of the cards include elements of this landscape in varying degrees of detail however in a handful of cards, Colman Smith utilises identifiable landmarks, places she knew well. Which raises the question is her use of landscape merely design? Or might it be that through these distinctive landscapes, Colman Smith imbues a more profound and personal symbolism?
1. Arthur Edward Waite, Collection National Portrait Gallery
Polymath occultist Edward Arthur Waite commissioned Colman Smith to illustrate his vision of a new tarot in 1909; Waite’s intention to demystify the cards, making them accessible to wider audiences.
A scholar and poet, Waite, Freemason, member of The Golden Dawn, and founder of the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, travelled widely, becoming initiated in numerous orders. He once declared himself the most initiated man alive. His ambition was to distance himself from the Eastern esoteric traditions of Madam Blavatsky and establish his own Western Esoteric tradition.
2: Colman Smith Colman Smith. The Craftsman Magazine, October 1912.
An only child born in England to American parents, Colman Smith was an itinerant child of a bohemian family; her father, a businessman, regularly travelled with his wife, fortuitously for Colman Smith, once leaving their teenage daughter in London in the care of English friend, the celebrated Lyceum theatre actor Ellen Terry.
In 1893, Colman Smith enrolled at New York’s progressive Pratt Institute, where teaching emphasised art’s spiritual and emotional aspects; her tutor was Arthur Dow, a scholar of Japanese art who influenced the burgeoning Arts and Crafts movement. Colman Smith flourished at Pratt, but her studies were cut short to join her father on a lengthy stay in Jamaica. Smith’s family was deeply rooted in the theatre, and this passion was inevitably stoked by her proximity to the Lyceum players during her stay with Terry; whilst in Jamaica, Colman Smith honed her stage skills, filling her days sketching, creating theatre sets, and entertaining children with local folk-tale performances.
By 1898, Colman Smith had begun to achieve commercial success as an artist and, in 1899, returned to London with her father, who died later that year, leaving Colman Smith alone; resilient and adaptable, she turned to her existing friendship group at the Lyceum and the bohemian milieu in which they moved. In the early 1900s, Colman Smith kept busy, touring with the Lyceum, however, she was becoming disillusioned with her artistic career and sought solace elsewhere, turning towards spiritualism through organisations, including the Golden Dawn.
W B Yeats and Bram Stoker are variously credited with introducing Colman Smith to the Golden Dawn. Meanwhile, Colman Smith’s relationship with Terry and her daughter, Edy Craig, is equally significant. Without those friendships, Colman Smith would not have counted the Lyceum players amongst her friends, nor would she have felt at home in the landscape of Kent and East Sussex, faces and places that would eventually feature so prominently in the cards.
3: Ellen Terry photographed with daughter Edy Craig © National Trust
In his 1938 autobiography “Shadows of Life and Thought”,(Waite 2016), Waite writes of “a delightful experiment with the so-called Tarot Divinatory Cards”. He continues, “In those days, there was a most imaginative and abnormally psychic artist named Pamela Colman Smith, who had drifted into the Golden Dawn and loved its ceremonies – as transformed by myself – without pretending or indeed attempting to understand their sub-surface consequence. It seemed to some of us that there was a draughtsman among us who, under proper guidance, could produce a Tarot with an appeal in the world of art and a suggestion of significance behind the Symbols which would put on them another construction than had ever been dreamed by those who, through many generations had produced and used them for divinatory purposes”.
Waite wielded significant influence on the English-speaking esoteric world, particularly through his translation of texts by French esotericist Éliphas Lévi (1810 – 1875). Lévi incorporated the Tarot into his magical system, notably connecting the Qabalistic Tree of Life and the Tarot Trumps, elaborating upon the earlier work of Etteilla (1738-1791), the pioneering French occultist who arguably developed the first spiritual interpretation of the deck.
Waite too claimed the Trumps as lynchpins of the deck and provided significant guidance to Colman Smith in designing these, incorporating all manner of Egyptian and Christian symbolism amongst the astrological attributions of the Golden Dawn. However, he exerted much less influence around the Minor Arcana, where he was inclined to leave Colman Smith to her own devices although she must “follow very carefully the astrological significance of each suit”(Waite 2016).
Waite writes, “My province was to see that the designs – especially those of the important Trumps Major – kept that in the hiddenness which belonged to certain great mysteries in the Paths of which I was travelling” (Waite 2016)
Indeed, under Waite’s guidance, the Majors are deeply imbued with Egyptian, Christian, Judaic and mythological symbolism, and where the landscape is prominent, Waite appears to prescribe it. “I saw to it therefore that Pamela Colman Smith should not be picking up casually any floating images from my own or another mind. She had to be spoon-fed carefully over the Priestess Card, over that which is called the Fool and over the Hanged Man.” (Waite 2016)
A point of commonality in the design of the Majors and Minors is Colman Smith’s use of the Lyceum players. Having sketched them numerous times in character and at rest she knew them intimately and would have had much reference material, including the actors themselves.
4. William Terriss as Mercutio, Illustration in photogravure
5. The Fool, Smith-Waite 1909
6. Bram Stoker Colman Smith Colman Smith © The National Trust
7. The Devil, Smith-Waite 1909
Archetypes based on Colman Smith’s friends include Edy Craig as the Queen of Wands, William Terriss as the Fool, while Sir Henry Irving and Terry make several individual appearances. The Devil is inspired by a sketch Colman Smith made of Bram Stoker, some 8 years earlier(Kaplan 2018), indicating that whilst Waite massively influenced the Majors, Colman Smith retained some autonomy and recycled older material.
In New Directions in Tarot, Scott Martin(Martin, 2024) emphasises how figures variously situated in their landscapes are deliberate pictorial devices strongly influenced by theatrical conventions familiar to Colman Smith through her extensive working experience of the stage. He argues that the Majors lack the theatrical elements of the Minors. However, not entirely, and he describes the Majors posing, their posturing enhancing a deeper reading of the cards.
We have no evidence that Colman Smith had any previous knowledge of the tarot, but she certainly drew inspiration from the Renaissance Sola Busca. This is the earliest example of a deck illustrating the pip cards, and similarities indicate they were a point of departure for some of Colman Smith’s own designs.
8. Sola Busca Ten of Swords Swords 9.Ten of Wands, Smith-Waite 1909
But, Colman Smith’s landscape is not that of the Sola Busca, where warriors of antiquity inhabit arid, parched Mediterranean terrain; Colman Smith’s cards are acid-hued, rich with verdant undulating landscapes where landmarks of Winchelsea, East Sussex and Smallhythe, Kent pepper the cards.
Katz and Goodwin acknowledge the massive debt to Winchelsea particularly, highlighting Colman Smith’s 1903 illustration, The Hill of Hearts Desire, as the precursor to the landscape of her tarot. Dawn G. Robinson(Robinson 2020) cites a 1901 letter from Colman Smith, describing her stay in Winchelsea “ . . . I am here with Edy and Chris for a week or so – such a delightful place, backgrounds galore.”
10. Pamela Colman Smith Illustration for “The Hill of Heart’s Desire,” by Lady Augusta Gregory. The Green Sheaf, No. 1
She continues, “A huge grey stone church with ivy on it and red tile roof – splendid. The largest village church in England. Rye in the distance on top of a little hill, red-roofed . . . with the grey sea beyond and little ships in the harbour”.
It is apparent then, two years before ‘The Hill of Hearts Desire’ and some eight years before Waite’s commission, the landscape of Winchelsea had already made its mark on Colman Smith’s psyche; the church, the grey sea, and the little ships all eventually appear in ‘The Hill of Hearts Desire’ and the deck itself.
11. 1909 postcard of “A huge grey stone church with ivy on it and red tile roof” Winchelsea, collection of the author.
Of the fourteen cards in each Minor’s suit, the compositions of the Court cards generally resemble the character cards of the Majors, sharing similarities to the Sola Busca, where a single form dominates the foreground. The Aces, devised by Waite, are all illustrated correspondingly: a hand emerges from the clouds, grasping the symbol of each suite. It seems then that Colman Smith exerted complete control only in nine pip cards of each suite; Avril Price, reader and scholar of the Smith-Waite, asserts Colman Smith’s genius lies in narrating huge stories with tiny images.
12. Tower Cottage, and Ten of Pentacles, Smith Waite 1909 © Danny Nemu, 2024
Pentacles, Swords, and Cups run deepest with elements of Winchelsea, East Sussex and Smallhythe, Kent. Pentacles represent the earth element, ruling our physical existence on earth, and it is in the Ten of Pentacles that Winchelsea looms largest; the red roof of Terry’s Tower Cottage, where Colman Smith almost certainly stayed, is framed by the ancient Stand Gate. Danny Nemu(Nemu 2024) writes that Colman Smith’s iconography is entirely appropriate, alluding to “the most concretised aspect of the suit of earth, the bricks of your house”
13. Tower Cottage and The Sun, Smith Waite 1909 © Danny Nemu, 2024
Nemu(Nemu 2024) suggests that the curved garden wall at Tower Cottage features in The Sun, indeed the sun’s placement is exactly where it would have risen, as seen from across the road. Interestingly of all the Majors The Sun seems to have least input from Waite; this card radiates boundless joy, warmth and happiness.
It is in The Two of Pentacles, a card of gaiety and, according to Waite of “troubles more imaginary than real”(Waite 1980), where we find the “grey sea and the little ships” described in Colman Smith’s 1901 letter from Winchelsea.
Also described in her 1901 letter from Winchelsea, the ancient church in the centre of the town dedicated to ‘St Thomas the Martyr’; she drew much inspiration from this historic building, unsurprising given Colman Smith and Waite’s shared interest in Christianity.
13a. The Two of Pentacles, Smith Waite 1909
The grey stone of the church can be found in the Five and Three of Pentacles; Price imagines the influence of Ford Maddox Brown in the Five of Pentacles; indeed, Maddox Brown’s “Manfred on the Jungfrau” 1842 bears striking similarities.
15. Ford Maddox Brown, “Manfred on the Jungfrau” 1842
14. The Five of Pentacles, Smith Waite 1909
16 St Thomas’s Church, Winchelsea and three of Pentacles, Smith-Waite 1909 © Danny Nemu, 2024
17. The Four of Swords 1909 and a tomb effigy, St Thomas’s Church Winchelsea © Danny Nemu, 2024
The Swords are associated with air, intangible and unseen; Colman Smith illustrates this invisible force in the rustling of trees, windswept hair and birds in flight; the physical is not illustrated here, but the elemental. Except The Four, a card of stability and rest, here Colman Smith depicts a stained glass window, and knight at prayer, both found in St Thomas’s Winchelsea.
18. The Blind Girl, 1856 John Everett Millais
19. The Ten of Cups, Smith-Waite 1909
20. William Blake The Death of Saint Joseph, 1803, National Gallery of Art, USA
The Ten of Cups is one of the most joyful cards in the deck. The Pre-Raphaelites influenced Colman Smith enormously, and this card bears striking similarities to Millais’s The Blind Girl. A painting addressing societal concerns but also nature at its most sublime, a young blind woman and her sister rest by the wayside before travelling to Winchelsea, visible in the background. The blind girl cannot see, but we fancy she experiences joy in the natural world through her other senses. William Blake’s influence is regularly apparent in Colman Smith’s work, and elements of Blake’s Death of Saint Joseph, 1803 can be found in both the Ten and Seven of Cups.
21. The Two of Cups, Smith Waite 1909 and the view from the Beacon, Winchelsea © Danny Nemu, 2024
In the Ellen Terry and Edith Craig archive at the University of Essex, documents indicate that Terry purchased Smallhythe, Kent before selling Tower Cottage. Smallhythe appears in the light-hearted, Six of Cups; several photographs of Colman Smith at Smallhythe indicate it was a happy place for her; however, no photographs of her at Winchelsea exist, at least not in the public domain. Katz & Goodwin(Katz 2015) suggest Colman Smith stayed at Smallhythe when she designed the deck; We know she visited in 1909, but there is no conclusive evidence that she actually stayed there. In fact, it is equally plausible that she stayed in Winchelsea while Terry attempted to sell Tower Cottage, it is approximately 15 miles between the two locations, easily accessible by transport in 1909.
23. St. John the Baptist Church adjacent to Smallhythe, Terry’s House Tenterden, Kent
22. The Six of Cups, Smith Waite 1909
The scenery of The Wands is closer to Waite’s landscape of the Majors. Price suggests Colman Smith struggled with The Wands, and this seems to be the case in comparison to other suites. However, The Four and Five of Wands clearly illustrate the garden trellises at Smallhythe; Katz & Goodwin(Katz 2015) suggest that the Four boasts an idealised depiction of both Terry’s homes, signifying sisterhood, a home away from home and celebration of all good things.
Colman Smith incorporated in the deck multiple elements from earlier works, dreamy landscapes and fairytale buildings; Colman Smith borrowed from the Pre-Raphaelites, William Blake and the Sola Busca amongst others. Gifted with sound-colour synesthesia, Colman Smith saw music, translating her visions to paper; perhaps then Debussy and Beethoven also play their part in the deck? Whatever the numerous influences, the 78 cards come together as a mystical universe where characters play out a game of life in the rich landscape of a tiny, almost unrecognised corner of England’s green and pleasant land.
The landscape of the Smith-Waite seems to have a profound personal symbolism for Colman Smith; however, despite the recent glut of biographies, Colman Smith herself and her motivations remain an enigma. We can partly trace her life through her work and letters, but she rarely wrote of feelings and, as far as we know, never kept a diary. We draw a blank, having no record of where she stayed, her inner-life or mood while illustrating the cards; only that in November 1909, Colman Smith wrote to Alfred Stieglitz, her gallerist in New York, complaining, “I’ve just finished a big job for very little cash . . . some people may like them”.
Gratitude
I want to thank Avril Price, who gave up a precious Sunday morning to talk tarot. Her deep knowledge of the cards, both spiritual and historical, is awe-inspiring. I also thank Danny Nemu for sharing his vast knowledge and allowing me to use his pictures from our Winchelsea walk last year.
Harriet Onslow, February 2025
24. Harriet Onslow-Delaney, as The High Priestess, Get Hastings, 2024 © Raphael Neal
25. The High Priestess, Smith Waite, 1909
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