Kim's Esoteric Tarot Journals

I just had to add this additional piece from The Reader: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine, September, 1903, p. 331-332. (note: date corrected).

MISS Pamela Coleman Smith was born of American parents in London, where her father was at the time engaged in business. On both sides her forebears exhibited in some degree the tendencies which have brought Miss Smith to the front in literary and artistic circles. One may say that from her mother she derived an intense, individual creative desire, which very early in life began to satisfy itself in a curious sort of drawing, later developed into the style already so well known, especially in England. While she was still a child the family removed to the island of Jamaica, where she lived seven years. During the time her chief diversion, outside her drawing, was learning the West Indian negro folk-tales. A volume of this folk-lore was…

With these later news articles it becomes apparent how much of Pamela Colman Smith’s work has been lost. We find a tendency among the reporters to “damn with faint praise” as Pixie moves out of the realm of neighborhood parlour entertainment and begins to be taken seriously by people like Alfred Stieglitz—always dangerous for a woman of the time. I’ve placed Pixie’s paintings-to-music here rather than in my 1907 post (when she began exhibiting them) because these news articles are more slanted toward her musical works. See also this article in Current Literature on “Pictured Music.”

Stieglitz purchased quite a few of Pixie’s paintings, which Georgia O’Keefe sold off separately soon after he died—despite his desire, stated in his will, to keep them together—amid some speculation that a decades-old jealousy was involved. The Delaware Art Museum has a few in of her works in their collection and produced an exhibit in 1975 curated by Melinda Boyd Parsons (she wrote the catalog and…

“Once in a long before time before Queen Victoria came to reign over we . . .”

This post features newspaper articles from Pixie’s 1907 visit to New York where she concentrated on presenting her Jamaican folk tales along with recitations of old English ballads and poetry by Yeats. Waite made it clear that “one other” had helped in the creation of the Tarot deck and from the accounts in these papers it is clear that she knew Yeats well. Separately I’ve learned that around this time she performed some recitals with Florence Farr, who taught Tarot to Golden Dawn initiates.

“never in the least bound down by the traditions”
Sat., Jan. 12, 1907

Miss Pamela Colman Smith, some of whose very interesting pictures are now being exhibited across the river, at 291 Fifth avenue, has recently returned to this country, after several years spent in England. Miss Smith had a…

“She has always been strange. There is not a page of her life, not an incident, that is not overflowing with romance.”

I’ve just discovered a lengthy article about Pamela Colman Smith in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. New York, Tuesday, November 1, 1904. It gives many details of her large Brooklyn family (much of which I’ve left out) and describes her in terms of a hometown girl. Accompanying the article was this photograph of PCS as a very young girl.

“Winsome Witchery in London Drawing Rooms”

“Remarkable Success of a Height Girl in folk-Lore Tales”

“A Remarkable Personality”

“Pamela Coleman Smith, Closely Related to Many Prominent Brooklyn Families, and Her Strange Career”

In London drawing rooms the enthusiasm and the fashion of the hour is Pamela Coleman[sic] Smith, who, in a brilliant frock of orange with a red turban, sits on a board with two lighted candles in front of her and…

Many people have been incensed by the lack of a known grave for Pamela Colman Smith, artist of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot. But how many people have made pilgrimage to the gravesite of Arthur Edward Waite? Please let us know if you have. It turns out that Waite lived in his later years and died not far from where Pixie Smith drew many of the cards for their mutual deck. For those who are interested go HERE for the location and some pictures of his grave. At least you can have a virtual look at the place where he was buried. Photo by Julia&Keld. 

ADDED: On the end of Waite’s grave are the words “Est Una Sola Res.” Someone asked me what these words meant. “There is only One Thing.” But, I’ll let Waite himself explain his understanding of this phrase, from his book The Hidden Church of the Holy Grail, published the same year as…