Pamela Coleman Smith's original paintings?
Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 26 Jul 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.
| Diana |
26 Jul 2003 |
|
What happened to Pamela Coleman Smith's original paintings of the Rider-Waite deck?
What size were they? And what kind of materials did she use?
Which town did she live in when she painted them?
How long did it take her?
Anyone have a good web-site on these matters?
|
| wavebreaker |
26 Jul 2003 |
|
I don't know of any websites, but there's an extensive article on Pamela Colman Smith in the Encyclopedia of Tarot, Volume III.
On the matter of the original paintings it says: "The original artwork is presently lost. Since Smith intended to send some of the paintings to Stieglitz, it seems that the artwork was kept by her, rather than turned over to Waite."
(Alfred Stieglitz was a gallery owner in New York who had organised exhibitions of Pamela's work before.)
It also says "Pamela Colman Smith's beautiful watercolours for the Rider-Waite Tarot are believed to have been destroyed in the bombing of London during World War II."
I understand from the article she was living in London while she painted them. It doesn't say how long it took her to paint the cards, but she received the commission to paint them from Arthur Edward Waite in 1909 (for 80 cards by the way, it's not clear what the 2 extra cards were, maybe a top card and an advertising card). The deck was published in 1910.
Hope this helps!
|
| baba-prague |
26 Jul 2003 |
|
Kaplan Volume III has a chapter about her, with quite a lot of biographical details.
I haven't found anything as comprehensive on the web - but I bet it exists and that someone here knows where it can be found :-)
|
| spoonbender |
26 Jul 2003 |
|
this site contains a part of the Encyclopedia of Tarot, Volume III, with a lot of biographical details about Pamela Colman Smith, although it doesn't says anything about the original paintings: http://www.wicce.com/memoriam.html, it's a very sad website, poor Pixie! :(
|
| Kissa |
05 Apr 2004 |
|
ok, so we don't know hat happened to the original paintings... then how can ome be sure that the so called "ORIGINAL Rider Waite Tarot" released by uS Games and the british edition carrying the same name (unable to find any pics of that one.. sorry) are actually looking like Pixie's paintings?
Isn't this a "fraud" anyway to call them original since Pixie painted something that the printing technique at that time was unable to be entirely faithful to?
OK, i wait to go back to my roots for a while and study RWS deeply. I love old looking decks and thought the Hanson Roberts Universal looks very good, i love the old style in the Original Waite.
I don't own the Encyclopedia, to my greatest shame ...
Kissa
|
The Pamela Coleman Smith's original paintings? thread was originally posted on 26 Jul 2003 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.
|
