Who Drew the Rider-Waite Tarot? Pamela Colman Smith and the Public Domain

The name on the box and the hand that did the work

Ask a room of readers who made the deck they learned on and most will say "Rider–Waite". The first name belongs to the publishing house, William Rider & Son. The second belongs to Arthur Edward Waite, the occultist who devised the scheme and wrote the accompanying book. Neither of them drew a line.

Every one of the 78 images — the figures, the landscapes, the objects, the compositional decisions that make the deck teachable — came from Pamela Colman Smith. The convention of calling it the Rider–Waite–Smith deck, or simply the Smith–Waite, has spread considerably in the last two decades precisely because the older name records the money and the theory while omitting the picture.

This is not a modern grievance projected backwards. Waite's own writing about the deck discusses the designs as executed to his direction, and Smith's contribution was public knowledge among people who knew her. What happened was ordinary and cumulative: an illustrator working for a flat fee, in a period when illustrators were rarely credited on the object itself, simply fell out of the title.

Who Pamela Colman Smith was

Smith was born in London in 1878 to American parents and spent formative years in Jamaica and in the United States, studying at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in the 1890s. She worked as an illustrator, a stage designer and a publisher of her own small periodical, The Green Sheaf, which ran for thirteen issues in 1903 and 1904 and drew contributions from writers in the circle around W. B. Yeats.

She was a working professional in several media at once: theatre design for the Lyceum company, book illustration, folklore collections, and a performance practice of her own in which she told stories and painted what she saw while music was played. That last habit matters for the tarot. Smith described making images from sound and from narrative rather than from a sitter or a still life, and the deck's cards behave like scenes from a story rather than like diagrams.

She joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1901, which is where the connection with Waite was made. She converted to Catholicism in 1911. She died in Bude, Cornwall, in 1951.

How the 1909 deck came to be made

Waite commissioned Smith in 1909 to produce a deck that would, in his framing, have appeal as art rather than as a trade item. The two had the Golden Dawn in common, and Waite had a scheme he wanted rendered: a set of correspondences and a reordering he considered a correction of the French tradition he had inherited.

The single decision that made the deck the standard is usually credited to the collaboration rather than to either party alone. In earlier decks, the minor arcana were "pips" — four cups, seven wands, arranged like a playing-card suit with no scene. Smith gave all 56 minor cards fully illustrated narrative images. That is why the deck can be learned by looking, and it is the reason the overwhelming majority of decks published since are, structurally, imitations of hers.

The deck went on sale in London in December 1909, accompanied by Waite's The Key to the Tarot, later expanded as The Pictorial Key to the Tarot. If you are choosing between traditions rather than histories, we compared the main lineages in the best first tarot deck.

What she was paid, and what she wasn't

Smith was paid a flat fee for the work. The exact figure is not securely documented, and accounts that quote a precise sum should be treated with caution; what is consistently reported by researchers is that the arrangement was a one-off payment rather than a royalty, and that she received no continuing income from a deck that has sold, by any estimate, in the many millions.

The rest of her life did not go well financially. She inherited a property in Cornwall, ran it with a companion, attempted to establish a retreat there, and lost it. She died in 1951 in reduced circumstances, and her estate was insufficient to cover her debts. The frequently repeated detail that she lies in an unmarked grave is reported widely and appears to be accurate, though it is the kind of biographical claim worth holding a little loosely.

It is worth resisting the pull to make this tidier than it was. Smith was not a naïf exploited by a villain; she was a professional illustrator who took a commission on the terms then normal for commissions, and the terms were bad in a way that only became visible once the deck did something no one predicted.

The monogram on every card

She did sign the work, in the only place available to her. In the lower corner of each card is a small monogram: a squared, interlocking arrangement of the letters P, C and S. Once you have seen it you cannot stop seeing it, and it is on all 78.

It is a useful thing to point out to anyone learning from the deck. The images are not anonymous heritage that drifted down from the tradition; they were made by a specific person, in a specific year, with a specific set of choices — the Fool's dog, the Three of Swords' rain, the exhausted figure carrying ten wands. Reading a card well often begins with noticing that someone decided it would look like that.

Why the images are public domain in the United States

Two separate things put the 1909 artwork in the American public domain, and it helps to keep them apart.

The first is age. Under United States copyright law, works published before 1930 have entered the public domain; their terms have expired, and no renewal can bring them back. A deck published in London in December 1909 falls comfortably on the expired side of that line, and this alone settles the matter for the original images today.

The second is a historical accident often mentioned in accounts of the deck: Waite did not secure United States copyright protection at the time, which is why American publishers were reproducing the images long before the term would have run out anyway. The practical effect was that the pictures circulated in the United States far more freely and far earlier than a normally protected work would have.

There is also a genuine and unresolved question underneath both points. Researchers who have looked for a document assigning copyright from Smith to Waite have not found one, which makes the chain of title to the original artwork murkier than the confident claims on some packaging suggest. For the 1909 images in the United States the question is now academic, because expiry does not care who held the right. It is not academic for later material.

What public domain does and does not let you do

Public domain status in the United States means the original 1909 images may be copied, printed, adapted, sold and built upon there without permission or payment. People make their own decks, oracle spreads, prints, tattoos, teaching materials and apps from them, and that is lawful use of an expired work.

Three limits catch people out.

Editions are not the original. U.S. Games Systems published its version of the deck in 1971, and its recolouring and reworking constitute new creative contributions in which it holds rights. Scanning a modern printed deck reproduces that edition, not the 1909 one. If you intend to work from the images, work from a documented 1909-edition scan, not from whatever deck is on your shelf.

Trademarks are not copyrights. A name can be protected as a trademark indefinitely, long after the artwork it is attached to has entered the public domain. Using the images is one question; naming your product after a protected mark is a separate one with a separate answer.

Countries are not the same. Copyright terms are national. Many jurisdictions run to seventy years after the author's death, which for a creator who died in 1951 gives a very different expiry date from the American publication-date rule. If your project will be sold or distributed outside the United States, the American answer does not travel with it.

Original, edition, and what each status means

What it is	Year	US status	What that means for you
Smith's original artwork	1909	Public domain	Free to copy, adapt and sell in the United States
Waite's accompanying books	1910/1911	Public domain	Text freely reproducible; widely available online
A later publisher's edition	1971 onwards	Rights in the new work	Do not scan a modern deck as your source
Deck names and marks	Ongoing	Trademark	Can persist indefinitely; separate from copyright
The same artwork abroad	Varies	National rules	Check the country where the work will be sold

How to credit her when you use the images

Nothing in law requires you to credit a public domain artist. Crediting her anyway is cheap, accurate, and repairs by a small increment the specific thing that went wrong here.

In practice that means naming the deck the Rider–Waite–Smith or Smith–Waite rather than the Rider–Waite; writing "artwork by Pamela Colman Smith, 1909" where you would put a credit line; and, if you teach, saying her name aloud when you explain why the minors are illustrated. If you are producing something derived from the images, stating which edition you worked from is both honest and useful to anyone who comes after you.

Quiz: how well do you know the deck you read with?

More decks, reference works and reading material sit in tarot, books & divination, and the historical end of the shelf in occult & mysticism books.

Voices from practice

Three things come up repeatedly among readers who learn Smith's biography after years of using her deck, described here as the recurring patterns they are rather than as individual testimony.

Readers very often report that the cards change character once the artist becomes a person. The images stop feeling like inherited symbols and start feeling like decisions, and several of the harder minors — the five of pentacles, the ten of wands — are frequently described as becoming easier to read rather than harder once you can see a hand behind them.

Teachers commonly say that the monogram is the single most effective thing to show a beginner, because it converts an abstract point about authorship into something the student can find themselves on every card in front of them.

And people building derivative work almost always report the same surprise: that the copyright question is easy and the edition question is the one that takes the afternoon. Establishing which printing a given scan came from is usually harder than establishing whether the underlying work is free.

What we don't promise

This is a summary of publicly documented copyright status written for general understanding. It is not legal advice, we are not lawyers, and it cannot tell you whether your particular project is lawful in your particular jurisdiction. Copyright terms vary by country, editions carry their own rights, trademark is a separate regime from copyright, and anything commercial deserves an actual professional opinion rather than a magazine article.

On the biography, we have tried to mark the difference between what is documented and what is repeated. Smith's dates, her Golden Dawn membership, the 1909 commission and the December 1909 publication are solid. The precise fee she was paid is not securely recorded, and we have not invented a number for it. The unmarked grave is widely reported rather than archivally demonstrated here.

We make no claim that any deck reads more accurately than any other, or that knowing an artist's biography improves divinatory outcomes. What it improves is your relationship to the images, which is a different and more defensible thing.

Practically: how to work with this

1. Find the monogram. Take your deck, find the P–C–S in a lower corner, and check that it is on all 78. Two minutes, and the deck is permanently different afterwards.
2. Change what you call it. Rider–Waite–Smith, or Smith–Waite. It costs a syllable.
3. Read the minors as scenes. For a week, for each minor card, name one compositional choice — weather, sightline, what is behind the figure — before you reach for a keyword.
4. If you make something from the images, source the 1909 edition. Note where your scan came from and keep that note with the project files.
5. Keep copyright and trademark separate in your head. Free to use the pictures is not the same as free to use the name.
6. Check your own country's term. If your work will be sold or seen outside the United States, look up the rule where it will land.
7. Credit her in writing. One line, wherever the images appear.

Once the images are doing more work for you, the practical end of reading is covered in how to prepare for a reading and, for the situation everyone eventually hits, what to do when two readings contradict.

Frequently asked questions

Should I call it the Rider–Waite or the Rider–Waite–Smith?

Either is understood, but Rider–Waite–Smith (or Smith–Waite) is the more accurate name, because it records the artist alongside the publisher and the author. The longer form has become common in tarot publishing and teaching over the past two decades for exactly that reason.

Can I legally print my own deck using the 1909 images?

In the United States the original 1909 artwork is in the public domain, so reproducing it is lawful there. Two cautions: work from a documented 1909-edition source rather than scanning a modern deck, since later editions carry their own rights; and if you will sell or distribute outside the United States, check the term in those countries. For anything commercial, take proper legal advice.

Did Waite tell Smith exactly what to draw?

He supplied the scheme and direction, and he described the designs as executed to his instruction. How detailed that instruction was, card by card, is not fully documented. What is clear is that the visual decisions — composition, setting, gesture, colour, weather — are Smith's, and those are what readers actually work with.

How much was she paid?

It is not securely documented. Accounts agree it was a flat fee rather than a royalty arrangement, and that she received nothing from the deck's later success. Specific figures circulate, but we have not been able to trace them to a primary record and would rather say so than repeat one.

Why does U.S. Games Systems claim rights if the deck is public domain?

Because two different things are in play. The 1909 artwork's term has expired. The edition U.S. Games published in 1971 involved new creative work — recolouring and reworking — in which it holds rights, and it also holds trademarks connected with the deck's naming. Claims attaching to that edition and those marks are separate from the status of the original images.

Was Smith a member of the Golden Dawn?

Yes. She joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1901, which is how she and Waite were connected. The order's system of correspondences sits underneath the deck's structure, though Smith's images translate it into narrative scenes rather than displaying it openly.

Sources & further reading

• Stuart R. Kaplan et al., Pamela Colman Smith: The Untold Story (U.S. Games Systems, 2018) — the fullest collection of biographical material and reproductions of her non-tarot work.
• Stuart R. Kaplan, The Encyclopedia of Tarot, vols. I–IV (1978–2005) — standard reference for deck history, publication dates and editions.
• Arthur Edward Waite, The Key to the Tarot (William Rider & Son, 1910) and The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911) — Waite's own account of the scheme, published alongside the deck.
• Pamela Colman Smith (ed.), The Green Sheaf, nos. 1–13 (1903–1904) — her own periodical, digitised and freely readable at the Internet Archive.
• U.S. Copyright Office, Circular 15a: Duration of Copyright — the term rules that place pre-1930 published works in the public domain.
• Internet Sacred Text Archive, The Rider–Waite–Smith Tarot Card Copyright FAQ — a long-standing plain-language summary of the deck's rights position and the gaps in its chain of title.