Reviews (6)
Crediting the woman who created the iconic images for the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck
A beautiful and well documented exhibition catalogue of Pamela Colman Smith’s work. A rare book on the life and work of the artist who created the iconic images that generations have used for tarot card readings. One cannot be interested in the Occult and not be aware of Coleman Smith’s work. This is a wonderful edition to anyone’s library who is interested in the spiritual in art, illustration and women who have made significant contributions in art during the early 20th century.
Nice book to be available
I really loved reading more about this female artist. It gave me some insight into what it was like for women artist in the early 1900s. I am glad I chose this book. The pictures were really good on a Kindle too. I felt like i was there briefly.
A vision of beauty & wonder needed now
After too many decades of neglect, Pamela Coleman Smith is finally getting due recognition for her work as an artist, writer, suffragette, and student of the occult. Known primarily as the artist who gave us the beautiful imagery of the now-ubiquitous Rider-Waite Tarot deck, she was so much more than that. This exhibition catalog from the Pratt Institute of Art provides a short introduction to her life & work & is especially good for those unfamiliar with hit. I'd have preferred a bit more biographical information, but there are several other fine books offering that. What matters here is the sampling of her art, which is lovely, & evocative, possessing that otherworldly aura that permeated much of the Western world prior to & immediately following WWI. It was a last glimmering of Romanticism, soon to be extinguished until revived in the 1960s—a yearning for the mystery & wonder that industrialization & reductive materialism had already begun banishing with a mechanistic view of life & of humanity. As I say, this is a short introduction. If what you see in its pages interests & intrigues you, then it has accomplished its purpose, and you can delve more deeply into Smith's life & work via more detailed books. Recommended for beginners!
Crediting the woman who created the iconic images for the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck
A beautiful and well documented exhibition catalogue of Pamela Colman Smith’s work. A rare book on the life and work of the artist who created the iconic images that generations have used for tarot card readings. One cannot be interested in the Occult and not be aware of Coleman Smith’s work. This is a wonderful edition to anyone’s library who is interested in the spiritual in art, illustration and women who have made significant contributions in art during the early 20th century.
Nice book to be available
I really loved reading more about this female artist. It gave me some insight into what it was like for women artist in the early 1900s. I am glad I chose this book. The pictures were really good on a Kindle too. I felt like i was there briefly.
A vision of beauty & wonder needed now
After too many decades of neglect, Pamela Coleman Smith is finally getting due recognition for her work as an artist, writer, suffragette, and student of the occult. Known primarily as the artist who gave us the beautiful imagery of the now-ubiquitous Rider-Waite Tarot deck, she was so much more than that. This exhibition catalog from the Pratt Institute of Art provides a short introduction to her life & work & is especially good for those unfamiliar with hit. I'd have preferred a bit more biographical information, but there are several other fine books offering that. What matters here is the sampling of her art, which is lovely, & evocative, possessing that otherworldly aura that permeated much of the Western world prior to & immediately following WWI. It was a last glimmering of Romanticism, soon to be extinguished until revived in the 1960s—a yearning for the mystery & wonder that industrialization & reductive materialism had already begun banishing with a mechanistic view of life & of humanity. As I say, this is a short introduction. If what you see in its pages interests & intrigues you, then it has accomplished its purpose, and you can delve more deeply into Smith's life & work via more detailed books. Recommended for beginners!
