Pamela Colman Smith and the 1909 Smith-Waite Tarot Deck

Written by Orbitarot · Sources: listed at the end of this guide · Updated October 7, 2026

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Key finding: In the 78 card entries of Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), Smith is never named, but Waite calls a card's picture "the design" in 9 of the 56 Minor Arcana entries (8 say "the design", the Six of Wands says "so designed") and twice hands the meaning to it outright (Three and Ten of Swords).

Who was Pamela Colman Smith?

Pamela Colman Smith (1878 to 1951) was a British artist, born in London to American parents, who drew all 78 cards of the tarot deck published in London in 1909 by William Rider and Son. She worked with the writer A. E. Waite (1857 to 1942), who set out the symbolism. Her pictures are the ones on every card page of this site. He does credit her once, in the introduction to Part II, where he says the cards were drawn and coloured by Miss Pamela Colman Smith.

That deck is often sold under its publisher's name, with Waite's name added. Many readers now call it the Smith-Waite deck, and on this site we simply call it the 1909 Smith deck, because the images you see are hers. This guide sticks to what can be checked: the dates above, what the deck changed, what Waite's own companion book says about the pictures, and why the cards are free to use today. Where we could not confirm a detail of her life or her arrangements with the publisher, we have left it out rather than repeat it.

Who drew the tarot deck often sold under its publisher's name?

Pamela Colman Smith drew it. Waite designed the scheme: which symbols each Major Arcana card should carry and what each card should mean. Smith turned that scheme into 78 finished pictures, including a full scene on every one of the 56 Minor Arcana cards, which was the deck's most important change.

The split between the two shows clearly in Waite's text. When he describes the Major Arcana, he writes as the person who chose the symbols. Of The Chariot he says "I have accepted the variation of Éliphas Lévi; two sphinxes thus draw his chariot", and of the Wheel of Fortune, "In this symbol I have again followed the reconstruction of Éliphas Lévi". When he describes the Minor Arcana, he often points to the picture itself, as something already made that the reader can look at. That is where Smith's hand shows most.

What does Waite's Pictorial Key say about the designs?

In the 78 card entries of The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), Waite never names Smith. He does, though, refer to a card's picture as "the design" in 9 of the 56 Minor Arcana entries (8 say "the design", the Six of Wands says "so designed"), and twice he says the meaning is simply whatever the design shows. The pictures carry part of the meaning by intent.

We checked this against the text of every card entry, both his descriptions of the 22 trumps and his notes on the 56 Minor Arcana. Smith's name does not appear in any of them; other parts of the book fall outside this check. Here are the plainest passages, quoted exactly, with his double hyphens shown as commas.

Removal, absence, delay, division, rupture, dispersion, and all that the design signifies naturally, being too simple and obvious to call for specific enumeration. A. E. Waite, Three of Swords, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910)

Whatsoever is intimated by the design; also pain, affliction, tears, sadness, desolation. A. E. Waite, Ten of Swords, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910)

Vigilance, retreat, solitude, hermit's repose, exile, tomb and coffin. It is these last that have suggested the design. A. E. Waite, Four of Swords, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910)

Compare the design which illustrates the Eight of Pentacles. The apprentice or amateur therein has received his reward and is now at work in earnest. A. E. Waite, Three of Pentacles, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910)

The card has been so designed that it can cover several significations A. E. Waite, Six of Wands, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910)

Read together, these show how the 1909 Minor Arcana were meant to work. For the Three of Swords and the Ten of Swords, Waite hands the meaning to the picture. For the Four of Swords, he says the old meanings produced the picture. For the Three of Pentacles, he links two scenes into a small story, the apprentice of the Eight of Pentacles now at work in earnest. And for the Six of Wands, a single scene was drawn to hold several readings at once. Elsewhere he adds that the Nine of Cups picture "offers the material side only, but there are other aspects".

Where Waite changed the old designs

For the Major Arcana, Waite says outright that several cards break with older decks. These notes explain why some cards in the 1909 deck look different from older tarot images.

• Death: change is "more fitly represented in the rectified Tarot by one of the apocalyptic visions than by the crude notion of the reaping skeleton". Hence the armored skeleton riding a white horse and carrying a banner, in place of the older figure reaping with a scythe.
• The Lovers: the card "replaces, by recourse to first principles, the old card of marriage". He adds that "The old meanings fall to pieces of necessity with the old pictures".
• Strength: "this card has been interchanged with that of justice, which is usually numbered eight". So Strength is VIII and Justice is XI in this deck.
• Temperance: "All the conventional emblems are renounced herein."
• Pentacles: "I have not invented the substitution of pentacles", he writes, noting that in many old packs the suit stood for coins.

What was new about the 1909 deck?

The big change was the Minor Arcana. In most earlier decks in common use, such as the Marseille pattern, a numbered card showed only its symbols in a set arrangement: five cups, seven swords. The 1909 deck gave all 40 numbered cards a full scene with people, places and action, so a reader could interpret the picture directly.

That is why a beginner can pick up this deck and read it with no book. The Five of Cups shows a cloaked figure mourning spilled cups, and the meaning of loss is in the image. On a pip card, the same meaning had to be memorized. Combined with the court cards and the 22 Major Arcana, every one of the 78 cards became a picture to read rather than a code to learn. Many later decks follow the same approach.

Waite's notes show the scenes doing real work. Of the Ten of Wands, where a man carries a bundle of ten staves toward a town, he writes: "The place which the figure is approaching may suffer from the rods that he carries." That reading comes from the picture, not from the number ten or from any older list. It is a small example of how the 1909 images let a reader build meaning from what a figure is doing, where it is going and what it carries.

Why is the 1909 Smith deck in the public domain?

In the United States, works published before 1931 are now in the public domain, and the deck was published in 1909. In the UK and the European Union, copyright usually lasts for the creator's life plus 70 years. Smith died in 1951, so that term ran out at the end of 2021. This is general information, not legal advice.

The same reasoning covers Waite's text. He died in 1942, and his book appeared in 1910, which is why we can quote the Pictorial Key at length and show his original meanings on every card page. Two cautions apply. First, the public domain status covers the original 1909 art. Later recolored editions, new box designs and modern brand names can carry rights of their own. Second, rules differ from country to country, so anyone planning a commercial product should check the law where they sell it.

Where do the card images on this site come from?

The card images on this site are scanned from an early printing of the 1909 deck that collectors call "Pam-A", obtained through Wikimedia Commons. We use those scans rather than a modern recoloring, so the lines and colors you see are as close to the first printings as we could find.

Each card page describes what is actually drawn in that scan, then gives our upright and reversed meanings alongside Waite's original 1910 text. You can browse all of them in our list of 78 tarot card meanings, starting with the Major Arcana or with a suit such as Cups.

How do you read with the 1909 deck?

Read the picture first. Smith's scenes were designed to carry the meaning, so ask what is happening on the card, who is in it and how they seem to feel. Then add the card's position in the spread and its suit. Waite's text, as quoted above, often points straight back to the image.

1. Describe the scene in one sentence. The Ten of Swords is a figure lying face down, pierced by ten swords. The ending is in the picture.
2. Notice the details Smith included. The two cups still standing behind the figure on the Five of Cups change the meaning from pure loss to loss with something left.
3. Use the position. A card in the past slot of a three-card tarot reading reads differently from the same card in the outcome slot.
4. Compare with Waite only when it helps. His lists are older and sometimes contradictory, which our guide to numbers in tarot shows card by card.

A daily tarot card is a simple way to get to know the pictures one at a time. Treat each one as a prompt for reflection, not a forecast. Our guide on how to read tarot covers the full method.

Questions

Who drew the Smith-Waite tarot deck?

Pamela Colman Smith (1878 to 1951), a British artist born in London to American parents, drew all 78 cards. A. E. Waite set out the symbolism, and William Rider and Son published the deck in London in 1909.

Why is it called the 1909 tarot deck?

It was first published in 1909. The deck is often sold under its publisher's name, and many readers now call it the Smith-Waite deck to credit the artist.

Is the 1909 Smith tarot deck public domain?

The original 1909 art is in the public domain in the United States, where works published before 1931 are free to use, and in the UK and EU, where Smith's life plus 70 years ended in 2021. Later recolored editions and brand names can carry their own rights. This is general information, not legal advice.

What was new about Pamela Colman Smith's tarot cards?

She gave all 56 Minor Arcana cards illustrated scenes. Most earlier decks in common use showed only arranged symbols on the numbered cards, so the meaning had to be memorized rather than read from the picture.

Sources

• A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: William Rider and Son, 1910), card entries for the Greater and Lesser Arcana; public domain: https://sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/index.htm
• Card images: scans of an early "Pam-A" printing of the 1909 deck: Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/
• U.S. Copyright Office, Duration of Copyright (Circular 15a): https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf

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