Tarot Exhibition at the Warburg Institute

Tarot Exhibition at the Warburg Institute

Last week I traveled to London to view a very exciting Tarot exhibition at the Warburg Institute. The Warburg is one of the world’s leading centres for the study of art and culture - a creative crucible for scholars, curators, artists and all those whose work sits outside traditional academic structures.

It houses world-renowned occult material, including rare tomes and manuscripts on esoteric subjects ranging from astronomy, alchemy and divination, to magic, Islamic astrology and Kabbalah.

My reason for visiting was to view their latest major exhibition - Tarot: Origins and Afterlives. The display presented critical moments from Tarot's history and explored origins and the profound transformations cards have undergone in the hands of artists, mystics and writers.

Highlights for me included viewing rare and historic collections including:

An Austin Osman Spare deck.

Cards from the Tarot de Marseille Gassmann deck (c.1865).

Original 1909 Rider Waite Smith cards, alongside a letter written by Pamela Coleman Smith.

And viewing a tableau created by Etteilla, which illustrates the first system created for using cards explicitly for divination.

But the star of the show for me, really was the spectacular hand-painted and gold gilded Visconti Sforza cards - the oldest surviving tarot cards in existence.

I touch upon the history of these cards in my learn tarot workshops, and as many of you know - it is a dream of mine to see them in person. I thought I might have to travel as far as Italy or the US to view them, so it was unexpected when I found out that such remarkable collections of cards and related objects were on loan to an institution in my own capital city.

I love this deck so much that I sell reproduction decks on my website.

Buy a reproduction Visconti Sforza deck here.

The exhibition was emotional and inspiring on so many levels. It was a pilgrimage to explore the roots of a craft that has given me emotional and spiritual support throughout my life, and as a professional reader, has afforded me the opportunity to earn a living doing the thing I am most passionate about.

The biggest take away for me however, has been an unexpected one! The sheer creativity, inquiry and exploration of these tarot creators has pushed me to pick up some ink and draw for the first time in many years. 

It has been over 20 years since I graduated with an art degree, and although I work in a highly creative field - both creating products for Rituals Revived and working part-time in the museum industry designing digital content, it has been a long time since I created art simply for art’s sake.

I’m going to wind up this journal entry by contemplating something I’m often asked about. “Which card would this situation be?”. If I could choose a tarot card to represent the energy of this trip - it would be The World.

When I was in high school and first learning tarot, my GCSE art exam piece was based on tarot cards. At that time it was my ambition to pursue a career in Art Therapy - to work in hospitals, prisons and rehab centres, helping people to express themselves and heal through art.

Upon graduating university, I ended up working as a self-employed artist and antique dealer. I was part of a wonderful studio community, and was so happy where I was, that pursuing my art therapist plans just naturally fell to the wayside.

It's funny that things seem to have come full circle, and I’ve ended up back on that path, albeit with a slightly different approach.

As professional tarot reading became a huge segment of my work. I realised that I deliver readings to my clients with perhaps a more therapeutic approach than some other readers - at least that is what I’m regularly told. So I worked towards developing this, and studied to gain several therapy and mental health support qualifications.

So, although I am not a medical practitioner or art therapist, day to day, I have the privilege of working one to one with people undertaking deep inner work, healing trauma or just getting things off their chest - In a spiritual rather than formal way. 

You can read more about my approach to tarot reading, plus my code of ethics at https://www.ritualsrevived.com/pages/tarot-readings

I have very exciting plans to bring art back into the equation! And am pleased to announce that I’m launching a Drawing for Mindfulness workshop this August. I'll pop the link just below if any of you feel called to join in.

Some other useful links you might like to take a look at:

Warburg exhibition
https://warburg.sas.ac.uk/events/tarot-origins-and-afterlives-2025

Warburg
https://warburg.sas.ac.uk/about-us

Watch an Intagram Reel I made of the visit
https://www.instagram.com/ritualsrevived/

Much love,
Hayley

Rituals Revived Apothecary and Botanica
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