When it comes to tarot cards, there is an artistry to designing a world of emperors, fools, priestesses, hermits and other iconic figures. But few people know about the woman who illustrated the best selling deck of all time – Pamela Colman Smith. Professor Elizabeth Foley O’Connor and author Susan Wands explain why Pamela Colman Smith was uniquely suited to design tarot cards that stimulate our intuition and our imagination, and how the figures on the Rider-Waite (a.k.a. Smith-Waite) deck are based on a real troupe of famous actors.
