Pamela Colman Smith and William Butler Yeats

You might have known that Pamela Colman Smith and William Butler Yeats were friends. Pamela, of course, was the artist behind the Rider Waite tarot — the world's most popular deck, released more than a century ago. Yeats was a poet and a playwright who influenced many of Smith's drawings.

While Yeats was — and is — world famous, Smith's star didn't shine as brightly. Even so, she managed to cast some of her rays as far as Minneapolis, Minnesota, where I live now.

In fact, one of Smith's drawings of William Butler Yeats ran in the February 6, 1904 edition of The Minneapolis Journal.

Click here to view a PDF copy of the newspaper page.

For more on Pamela Colman Smith's art and work, check out the biography I wrote for her book, Susan and the Mermaid. And if you've never seen the National Library of Ireland online exhibition of Yeats' life and times, click here.

Click here to order Susan and the Mermaid.