These Salvador Dali–Painted Tarot Cards Are as Spooky as You’d Imagine

The 1970s brought back a surge in the popularity of tarot cards. This was due in large part to the mass production of what’s known as the Rider-Waite deck, whose vivid renderings of the Magician, High Priest, Lovers, and remaining cast of tarot characters are often the first images one envisions when recalling this now mainstream fortune-telling game. It’s no surprise that these eldritch cards, rife with mystery and otherworldliness, would pique the interest of one of the 20th century’s most uncanny characters: the Spanish artist Salvador Dalí.

Much like the enigmatic nature of the cards themselves, the origin story of the Surrealist maestro–designed tarot deck remains somewhat of a puzzle (involving a commission by the film producer Albert Broccoli and a contractual deal that fell through). What is known is that Dalí, inspired by his wife and muse, Gala, created 78 peculiar, exquisite, and mystifying tarot cards that were distributed as a limited art edition in 1984. In time for Halloween, Taschen has reproduced the full deck, releasing it together with a tarot how-to guide by the German author Johannes Fiebig.

"The tarot cards of Salvador Dalí with their pictorial enigmas and allusions ultimately present a mirror: you are the Magician, an original," writes Fiebig. In the spirit of tarot reading—in which each card functions as a looking glass into one’s past, present, and future—we’re reflecting on Dalí’s deck, examining its design, art-historical influences, and the mystical meaning behind these curious cards.