Mountain Dream Tarot: A Deck of 78 Photographic Cards

Bea Nettles American
1975
Not on view
The idea to create a set of photographic tarot cards came to Nettles in a dream during the summer of 1970, while she was on an artist’s residency in the mountains of North Carolina. She subsequently reinterpreted the ancient symbolism of the traditional tarot deck, enlisting friends and family members as models for photographs that she augmented with hand-painted additions. In 2007 the image Nettles created for the Three of Swords card was used as the disc graphic for Bruce Springsteen’s album Magic.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Mountain Dream Tarot: A Deck of 78 Photographic Cards
  • Artist: Bea Nettles (American, born Gainesville, Florida, 1946)
  • Date: 1975
  • Medium: Photographically illustrated tarot cards
  • Classification: Books
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Dorothy Levitt Beskind Gift, 1977
  • Object Number: 1977.556.2
  • Rights and Reproduction: © Bea Nettles
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

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