"I've just finished a big job for very little cash!"

Pamela Colman Smith wrote, in a letter to Alfred Stieglitz,
stating clearly (for all legal intents and purposes) that her
Tarot was not a "work for hire" and that is a historical fact.

I've just finished a big job for very little cash!
a set of designs for a pack of Tarot cards
80 designs

I shall send some over - of the original drawings
as some people may like them
I shall send you a pack... as soon as they are ready

Click on: Facsimile

She rightfully considered the original drawings as her property
and felt they might also be valuable now for sale in New York.
From her choice of words it is clear she is "talking shop" here,
and not indicating that she was hired and sold her legal rights.

Arthur Edward Waite is not mentioned, and she never did say
anything about him in public whatsoever. He was a minor bit.

So why is there such a clamour, insisting Waite was an influence?

For the very simple reason that The Golden Dawn was a mockery,
and without the cards created by Smith, it remains a joke as well.

Of course if you wish to copyright her cards he makes a nice shill.

*

I believe Steiglitz deliberately included this letter to him from Pam
along with other items bequeathed to Yale Library exactly because
he knew that other people would sneak around to steal her credit.

I have added a copy of the letter below as an attachment,
to ensure that it will be available for viewing by those who
seek the truth... to all believers.

The RWS deck was published *7* years after the demise of the Golden Dawn.

What was the Golden Dawn a mockery of, and how do Smith's images stop the joke? Crowley's tarot has a lot more to do with the G:.D:. system than hers...

I can't tell if you're trying to say the Independent and Rectified Rite was somehow "more right" than the Golden Dawn, or what.

-confused.

like, mea culpa, you know

Hi Mike I was an altar boy when the Mass was in Latin,
and I majored in English at university. Sorry I mix you up.

And then we had to go along calling it the Rider-Waite.....

For Pixie lovers...Rider-Waite-Smith...

I would prefer Smith-Waite....or PCSmith Tarot....

Sheesh.....What a lady, huh, Fulgour??

"I've just finished a big job for very little cash!
a set of designs for a pack of Tarot cards 80 designs"

clearly constitutes a work for hire. And unless she specifically reserved some rights, she sold them all. Please provide documentary evidence of the terms of her agreement with Waite, preferably signed by both parties for your position. This letter, while interesting, is not a legal document. It is not even an assertion of rights, it's merely a commentary.

However, I do recognize that in Pixie's mind she might have some rights. That, of course, is in no way conclusive. This letter does seem to indicate that she thought she'd been underpaid in hindsight. Did Stieglitz reply to this letter? As an astute businessman he would have known that Pam's letter shows that she did a work for hire and he'd want to clarify if she had rights before selling something that Pixie wasn't entitled to sell. Do you know, via any sales records, whether he did sell any of her drawings? That might be indicative that she had reserved some rights to them.

However, even if she had reserved rights to the original drawings, she never had rights to the RW deck. In "A History of the Occult Tarot" Decker/Dummett point out that Pixie was consistently badly paid for her work (for illustrating books, etc.) and they characterize her as a poor businesswoman. I gather from the fact that U.S. Games now claims copyright for the RWS deck that they got it via sale from Rider. What isn't clear to me is whether Waite sold all rights to Rider for a flat fee or whether he received royalties. Does anyone know?

wizzle said:

In "A History of the Occult Tarot" Decker/Dummett point out that Pixie was consistently badly paid for her work (for illustrating books, etc.) and they characterize her as a poor businesswoman.

Click to expand...

I think characterizing her as a poor businesswoman is a convenient thing to do. (Would all the great, ripped off black blues artists of the American South then be characterized as poor businesspeople too ? ) Even today, businessmen take advantage of artists any way they can. They will outright lie , even in signed contracts . They will give false financial projections for the work , conspire to keep artist's wages low , and engage in all kinds of bs to get what they want and keep more money for themselves.

If an artist doesn't have the financial wherewithal to pursue them legally, she is pretty much out of luck . If an artist needs money and there aren't any other prospects, she may have to work for what is offered. If her style is not popular with the public of the moment , what she is offered will be significantly lowered . The public of the moment is often dead wrong and some artists who were dirt poor in life are quite revered in death.

We like to think well of successful businessmen and attribute fine qualities to their character . We also like to blame the victim .

How do I know ? Well , for example one of the biggest, richest mint companies on the face of the planet actually offered me a whopping ONE QUARTER OF ONE PERCENT royalty for the dubious priviledge of working for them ! Pretty pathetic . And they get away with it all the time .

So, let's not put the bad judgement that belongs on Waite and others onto poor PCS, who did a fine job, revolutionized the tarot, and whose talent stands head and shoulders above any of her difficulties .

Hang on a minuite.

Either everyone here knows something I don't...
or there are 2 cards missing out of my RWS/PCS deck.

80.
Fulgour. in your quote she says 80.
My deck only has 78.
Where (or what) are the other two?

Lillie said:

Hang on a minuite.

Either everyone here knows something I don't...
or there are 2 cards missing out of my RWS/PCS deck.

80.
Fulgour. in your quote she says 80.
My deck only has 78.
Where (or what) are the other two?

Click to expand...

From Kaplan The Encyclopedia of Tarot III

The Rider-Waite Tarot has only seventy-eight cards, and one wonders what the extra two designs were. Since decks of tarot cards are usually laid out eighty to a sheet for printing, it is possible that a top card and an advertising card were made to fill out the extra two cards, which would otherwise be blank. Or perhaps there was a talismanic card, like the "unicursal hexigram" included in the Crowley Book of Thoth Tarot.

The back design in the original printing was a standard pebbled design, so it is unlikely that Smith included a back pattern as one of the eighty designs.
The original artwork is presently lost. Since Smith intended to send some of the paintings to Steiglitz, it seems that the artwork was kept by her, rather than turned over to Waite.

Click to expand...

The opening article in this edition of the Encylopedia has wonderful prints of other art work by PCSmith!!

terri

From what I read/heard, only 78 cards, no one can tell the 80 designs...

although the front cover on AEW's translation of Tarot of the Bohemians has an engraved in leather design of the Wheel of Fortune in line drawing magnified about 3 times larger--it could have been part of her designs, a 'bookcover' ; supposedly when the book was new, the design was embossed in gold and the line drawing looked like this link:

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...refox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official_s&sa=N

And in the 1919 version published by William Rider and Son, limited, there's a discreet note in the front page of Tarot of the Bohemiams in tiny eight-point italic font that the Tarot pack of 78 cards (together with The Key to the Tarot) may be obtained upon application to the Publisher--William Rider and Sons, Limited, 8 Paternoster Row, London, E.C. 4.

So it was 78 cards and advertised as such.

I don't know what other designs other than the possible book cover with the Wheel of Fortune blow-up...

Regards,

Cerulean

8 Justice & 11 Strength

Lillie said:

Fulgour. in your quote she says 80.
My deck only has 78.
Where (or what) are the other two?

Click to expand...

I'd guess "alternates" were made of VIII Justice and XI Strength,
as Pen & Ink won't erase off Gouache (pigmented water colours).