from "Representative American Women Illustrators: The Decorative Workers"

by Regina Armstrong

...When one takes up the art of Pamela Colman Smith, so strongly decorative, it is to find that even in consideration with decorative workers, it occupies a distinct, a unique place. No one is doing quite the same kind of work that Miss Smith essays, and it is safe to say that no one could do it in quite her way. She sounds the top note in the gamut of exuberance and exaggeration. But she touches many notes besides, -- the humorous, the grotesque, the mystic, the pastoral, and the severe. One who has suffered from her mirthful and clever caricatures will appreciate the latter designation.

Miss Smith was born in London of American parents and in the matter of age has not yet entered on her second decade. But she has, nevertheless, been before the public several years, and is represented by an astonishing amount of work. Her art instruction consisted of three winters at Pratt Institute, which she considers were without effect on her methods. Most of her qualities are the result of contact with the world in different phases of life and scene. She took her first sea voyage when she was three months old, and since then has crossed the ocean twenty-five times. She has spent some of her time in London, has visited Ireland, has lived in Jamaica, and, having an animated personality, has imbibed the life of all. R. H. Russell took her first work, some single prints, and later published some drawings of "Trelawney of the Wells." Last year the same publishing firm issued a book, "The Annacy Tales", for which Miss Smith furnished the text as well as the drawings. They were a series of folk tales which she had gathered during her sojourn in Jamaica.

From the press of Doubleday, McClure & Co. several volumes have gone forth with examples of Miss Smith's vivacious interpretation : one was a collection of old English ballads: another a souvenir of Sir Henry Irving; still another "Widdicombe Fair"a ballad, and "In Chimney Corners", a book of Irish folk tales by Seumas MacManus. "Countess Kathleen" by William Yeats, whose writings Miss Smith particularly enjoys, has been another Irish medium for her work. Miss Smith likes Irish literature, "the Yeats kind", she says -- that of fairies and witches and poetic legends. Just now she is making color drawings for his "Wanderings of Usheen", which is the Gaelic way of spelling Ossian. She also purposes to follow an inclination toward historical drawings. Some she has already done in her Shakespeare Alphabet, which she executed at the instance of R. H. Russell.

Miss Smith has the Japanese directness of line, but she disclaims any predilection for their methods. Oriental influence is perceptible, however, but without intention, for the accredited liking is "not so much as people suppose", she says. With a merry recognition of the association, however, she has caricatured herself in tha guise.

The gamut of decorative treatment, as it stretches from Miss Oakley to Miss Pamela Colman Smith, would seem to have been sounded. Miss Oakley with her stable restraint and refined strength may be classed with the warm vigor and dignified handling of Miss Jessie Willcox Smith, and with the vital and human resources of Miss Green. Misses Jones and Kopman display the sure yet delicate tracery of a more ornamental art, while Miss Pamela Colman Smith takes unto herself all the eccentricities of pronounced individuality, and shows, throughout, an elastic search for expression of herself and of the wayward fancies and graces that possess her.

(The Critic, 1900 June issue. pp.526-529)