Editing Pamela Colman Smith (section)

==Biography==
Smith was born at 28 Belgrave Road in [[Pimlico]], part of [[central London]].<ref>{{harvnb|Kaplan|2009|page=5}}
</ref> She was the only child of a merchant from [[Brooklyn]], [[New York (state)|New York]] (before it was part of [[New York City]]), Charles Edward Smith (son of Brooklyn mayor [[Cyrus P. Smith|Cyrus Porter Smith]]), and his wife Corinne Colman (sister of the painter [[Samuel Colman]]). The family was based in [[Manchester]] for the first decade of Smith's life.  In 1889, they moved to Jamaica when Charles Smith took a job with the West India Improvement Company, a financial syndicate involved in extending [[Rail transport in Jamaica|the Jamaican railroad system]]. The Smiths lived in the capital, [[Kingston, Jamaica|Kingston]], for several years, traveling to London and New York.{{citation needed|date=November 2022}}

By 1893, Smith had moved to Brooklyn, where, at the age of 15, she enrolled at the [[Pratt Institute]], which had been founded six years earlier. There she studied art under [[Arthur Wesley Dow]], painter, print maker, photographer, and influential arts educator.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://hyperallergic.com/490918/pamela-colman-smith-pratt-institute-libraries/|title=Reviving a Forgotten Artist of the Occult|date=2019-03-23|website=Hyperallergic|language=en-US|access-date=2020-04-17}}</ref> Her mature drawing style shows clear traces of the visionary qualities of [[fin-de-siècle]] [[Symbolism (movement)|Symbolism]] and the [[Romanticism]] of the preceding [[Arts and Crafts movement]]. 

In 1896, while Smith was in art school, her mother died in Jamaica. Smith herself was ill on and off during these years and in the end left Pratt in 1897 without a degree. She became an illustrator; some of her first projects included ''The Illustrated Verses of [[William Butler Yeats]]'', a book on actress Dame [[Ellen Terry]] by [[Bram Stoker]], and two of her own books, ''Widdicombe Fair'' and ''Fair Vanity'' (a reference to ''[[Vanity Fair (novel)|Vanity Fair]]'').

In 1899 her father died, leaving Smith orphaned at the age of 21. She returned to England that year, continuing to work as an illustrator, and branching out into theatrical design for a miniature theatre. In London, she was taken under the wing of the [[Lyceum Theatre, London#Irving years|Lyceum Theatre group]] led by Terry (who is said to have given her the nickname 'Pixie'), [[Henry Irving]], and [[Bram Stoker]] and traveled with them around the country, working on costumes and stage design.

In 1901, she established a studio in London and held a weekly open house for artists, authors, actors, and others involved with the arts. [[Arthur Ransome]], then in his early 20s, describes one of these "at home" evenings, and the curious artistic circle around Smith, in his 1907 ''[[Bohemia in London]]''.

Smith wrote and illustrated two books about [[Caribbean folklore|Jamaican folklore]]: ''Annancy Stories'' (1899) and ''Chim-Chim, Folk Stories from Jamaica'' (1905). These books included [[Culture of Jamaica|Jamaican versions of tales]] involving the traditional African folk figure [[Anansi]] the Spider.<ref>{{harvnb|Kaplan|2009|pages=30–32}}</ref> She also continued her illustration work, taking on projects for [[William Butler Yeats]] and his brother, the painter [[Jack Yeats]]. She illustrated Bram Stoker's last novel, ''[[The Lair of the White Worm]]'' in 1911, and Ellen Terry's book on [[Diaghilev]]'s [[Ballets Russes]], ''The Russian Ballet'' in 1913.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Terry |first1=Ellen |title=THE RUSSIAN BALLET By Ellen Terry Withdrawings By Pamela Colman Smith 1913 |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45299/45299-h/45299-h.htm |via=www.gutenberg.org}}</ref>

Smith supported the struggle for the right to vote, and through the [[Suffrage Atelier]], a collective of professional illustrators, she contributed artwork to further the cause of [[Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom|women's suffrage in Great Britain]]. Smith also donated her services for poster designs and toys to the Red Cross during World War I.<ref>{{harvnb|Pyne|2007|pages=[https://archive.org/details/modernismfeminin0000pyne/page/59 59] "She worked for the Red Cross during World War I, again contributing poster designs and toys she made herself for children's aid."}}</ref>

In 1903, Smith launched her own magazine under the title ''The Green Sheaf'', with contributions by Yeats, Christopher St John ([[Christabel Marshall]]), Cecil French, A. E. ([[George William Russell]]), [[Edward Gordon Craig|Gordon Craig]] (Ellen Terry's son), [[John Todhunter]], and others. ''The Green Sheaf''  survived for a little over a year, a total of 13 issues.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=O'Connor|first=Elizabeth Foley|year=2016|title="We disgruntled devils don't please anybody": Pamela Colman Smith, The Green Sheaf, and Female Literary Networks|url=https://cup.sites.clemson.edu/scr/articles/scr-48n2-oconnor.pdf|journal=The South Carolina Review|volume=v. 48, no. 2|pages=73–89|via=Clemson University|access-date=1 April 2017|archive-date=2 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170402082926/https://cup.sites.clemson.edu/scr/articles/scr-48n2-oconnor.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Discouraged by ''The Green Sheaf's'' lack of financial success, Smith shifted her efforts towards setting up a [[small press]] in London. In 1904, she established The Green Sheaf Press which published a variety of novels, poems, fairy tales, and folktales until at least 1906, mostly by women writers.<ref name="Kaplan56">{{harvnb|Kaplan|2018|pages=56–58}}</ref>

In 1907, [[Alfred Stieglitz]] gave an exhibition of Smith's paintings in New York at his Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession (also known as [[291 (Art Gallery)|gallery 291]]), making Smith the first painter to have a show at what had been until then a gallery devoted exclusively to the photographic [[avant-garde]]. Stieglitz was intrigued by Smith's [[Synesthesia|synaesthetic]] sensibility; in this period, Smith would paint visions that came to her while listening to music. The show was successful enough that Stieglitz issued a [[platinum print]] portfolio of 22 of her paintings and showed her work twice more, in 1908 and 1909. Some Smith works that did not sell remained with Stieglitz and ended up in the Stieglitz/[[Georgia O'Keeffe]] Archive at [[Yale University]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Norfleet |first=Phil |title=Alfred Stieglitz and Pamela Colman Smith: Biography of Pamela Colman Smith |url=http://pcs2051.tripod.com/stieglitz_archive.htm |access-date=15 November 2022 |website=pcs2051.tripod.com}}</ref>

[[File:Pamela Colman Smith, “The Blue Cat” (1907), watercolor on paper board.jpg|alt=Mythical blue cat painted by Pamela Colman Smith|thumb|Pamela Colman Smith, ''The Blue Cat'' (1907), watercolor on paper board]]
Yeats introduced Smith to the [[Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn]], which she joined in 1901 and in the process met Arthur Edward Waite. When the Golden Dawn splintered due to personality conflicts, Smith moved with Waite to the Independent and Rectified Rite of the Golden Dawn (or Holy Order of the Golden Dawn). In 1909, Waite commissioned Smith to produce a [[Tarot|tarot deck]] with appeal to the world of art, and the result was the unique Waite–Smith tarot deck. Published by [[Rider (imprint)|William Rider & Son]] of London, it has endured as the world's most popular 78-card tarot deck. The innovative cards depict full scenes with figures and symbols on all of the cards including the pips, and Smith's distinctive drawings have become the basis for the design of many subsequent packs.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jensen |first=K. Frank |title=The story of the Waite-Smith Tarot |date=2006 |publisher=Association for Tarot Studies |isbn=0-9757122-1-7 |location=Melbourne |oclc=224928911}}</ref>

Apart from book illustration projects and the tarot deck, her art found little in the way of commercial outlets after her early success with Stieglitz in New York. Several examples of her works done in [[gouache]] were collected by her cousin, the American [[Sherlock Holmes]] actor [[William Gillette]], and may be found today prominently displayed in [[Gillette Castle State Park|his castle]] in Connecticut.{{citation needed|date=November 2022}}

In 1911, Smith converted to Roman Catholicism. After the end of the [[First World War]], Smith received an inheritance from an uncle that enabled her to lease a house on the [[Lizard Peninsula]] in [[Cornwall]], an area popular with artists. For income, she established a holiday home for Catholic priests in a neighbouring house. Her longtime friend, Nora Lake, joined her in Cornwall and helped to run the vacation home.<ref name="Kaplan86">{{harvnb|Kaplan|2018|page=86}}</ref>

After several years of financial difficulty, Smith left the Lizard and relocated first to [[Exeter]] in 1939, and then to [[Bude]] in the early 1940s. Although she continued writing and illustrating, she was unable to find publishers for her work, probably due to changes in public taste following the First World War.<ref name="Kaplan89">{{harvnb|Kaplan|2018|pages=89–90}}</ref>

Smith died in her apartment at the Bencoolen House in Bude on 18 September 1951. Her possessions were auctioned off to pay her debts. The location of her gravesite is unknown, but it is likely that she was buried in an unmarked grave in St. Michael's Cemetery in Bude.<ref name="Kaplan89"/>

<gallery>
File:Buy a Bulldog on June 16th and make our brave boys more comfortable.jpg|A [[World War I]]-era poster by Smith, encouraging people to buy a [[bulldog]], with proceeds going to benefit soldiers
File:Sheaf-7.png|Cover of ''The Green Sheaf'', issue 1, a [[literary magazine]] edited and published by Smith
</gallery>