Pamela Colman Smith was an artist, illustrator, writer and mystic. She is best known for illustrating the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot set.
Colman Smith was born in London to upper-class American parents, and spent her childhood in New York and later Jamaica. She gained early acclaim for her Symbolist-inspired watercolors, and she was part of a cultured social circle that included Bram Stoker, William Butler Yeats, and Ellen Terry. Colman Smith illustrated the now-iconic 78-card Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck. Colman Smith converted to Catholicism in 1911, after which point she focused on causes such as women's suffrage and the Red Cross. She retired to Lizard Point, Cornwall in 1915 where she lived for 20 years. She later moved to Bude, Cornwall where she died aged 73 nearly penniless.
