Magick Magazine No. 9 until 1938, when literary historians began to write about her. Waite never acknowledged the importance of Coleman-Smith's work. In the book written to accompany the cards, he failed to mention her by name, saying only that a "young black woman artist" had illustrated them upon his instructions. This dismissive attitude is inexcusable as they were equal members of the fraternal Order since 1901. Pamela had been a full member of the Order of the Golden Dawn right along with the better known members such as William Butler Yeats and Florence Farr. She was a founding member of the Golden Dawn before Arthur Waite caused his faction. Coleman-Smith originally met Waite through the ‘Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn’ occult organisation, in which they were both members. Together, they would create one of the world's most popular tarot decks. Many tarot historians believe that the lion's share of the credit for the deck actually belongs to Coleman-Smith for the artwork and the authorship too. Waite admits that he only carefully controlled the creation of three cards: “I saw to it that Pamela Coleman [sic] 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.” In contradiction to this, letters survive in which Waite sends Coleman-Smith to the British museum to make sketches from an Italian tarot deck from the 1400’s on display there with permission for the collector . and in this letter Waite asks Colman-Smith for her interpretation of the meanings of the cards. But if you hadn’t previously heard of Pamela Colman Smith, you’re not alone. ColemanSmith’s story sometimes gets missed out of tarot histories, and her name was left off most editions of her tarot deck until recently. But she certainly was a fascinating figure. If you’re interested in learning more about her we will be running an article on her for the next issue. Why would Waite always down played Coleman-Smith’s contributions? Additionally, what reason could Waite have for going so far as to later dismissing this deck as his own creation? What could the possible motivation be for neither of them really wanting to take credit for the deck?
Comparison Between The Sola Busca Tarot & Coleman-Simth’s Artwork
Seven of Swords
Queen of Cups
Ten of Swords
Three of Swords
The Sola Busca Tarot Copy The deck that Colman-Smith spent days viewing and sketching copies of in the British Museum is called “The Sola_Busca Tarot.” The Sola Busca Tarot is the oldest Italian deck of cards in the world, and were named after their last owners, Count Sola and Marquis Busca. In 1924, the Ministry of Public Education recognised the value of this complete collection and its illustrations, and bought the rights to it and claimed first option to buy it – which it exercised in 2009, when the deck was put up for sale. The cards are currently kept at the Pinacoteca di Brera, which in 1971 had already acquired the Brambilla deck, a set of late-Gothic cards made for the Duke of Milan. The Sola-Busca is a fine collection of miniatures coloured with tempera and gold. Traditional subjects are replaced by characters from ancient Greek and Roman history and two biblical villains Nimrod and Nebuchadnezzar. The suits show allegories and scenes of daily life. The symbolism draws hermetic/alchemic culture from the late 1400’s. The artwork has been attributed to Nicola di Maestro Antonio and coloured by Marin Sanudo. The Sola Busca Tarot is the only known deck with dynamic figures on all cards for four centuries where the preceding “Marseilles Decks” only have numerical features on the suits. ColmanSmith’s finished tarot illustrations are almost identical to these originals.
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