02/17/2021
Happy Birthday to Pamela Coleman Smith!
Coleman Smith, also known as Pixie, was a black British/American artist born on February 16 1878 in London to wealthy parents Charles Edward Smith, an American Merchant and son of Brooklyn Mayor, Cyrus Porter Smith, and his wife, Corinne Colman, who was sister of the painter, Samuel Colman.
In 1889, the family moved to Kingston Jamaica. In 1893 Pamela Coleman Smith moved to Brooklyn, New York where she enrolled at The Pratt Institute, age 15. She studied art under the institutes’ chairman, Arthur Wesley Dow, a painter, printmaker, photographer and influential arts educator, who inspired her in many ways but most notably, in her love for Art Nouveau and Symbolism which became her distinct style. Dow also helped Pamela understand her unique neurological condition called synesthesia, which is an automatic visual experience, that, in her case, is activated by sound/music.
In 1896 Pamela’s mother died in Jamaica, and Pamela herself was battling her own spat of illnesses on and off, so she left The Pratt Institute in 1897 with no degree and returned to London with her father where she worked as a commercial illustrator before branching out into theatrical design with the Lyceum Theatre Group. She wrote and illustrated two books about Jamaican Folklore: Annancy Stories and Chim chim, which included versions of tales involving the traditional West-African folk figure Anansi the spider. (I loved that spider!) In 1899, at the age of 21, Pamela’s father died.
While continuing her illustrator work on various projects for well-known creatives in London, she supported the suffragette movement by contributing artwork to Suffrage Atelier which was a collective of illustrators against the suffrage of women in Great Britain. She also donated poster designs, toys and service to The Red Cross during World War 1. ...Continued below ⬇️
