Pamela Coleman Smith was an artist, illustrator and writer. She was born in 1878 to American merchant Charles Edward Smith and his wife Corinne Colman – sister of painter Samuel Coleman. Although in London at the time of her birth, the family spent most of the first decade of her life in Manchester before moving to Jamaica.

At the age of 15, Smith sailed for New York. There, she enrolled at the Pratt Institute and studied art under Arthur Wesley Dow. She left four years later without a degree and returned to England, where she became an illustrator and theatrical designer.

She is most notable for her illustrations for the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot pack.