In 1893, at the age of 15, Pamela Colman-Smith moved to Brooklyn, New York to enroll in the recently established Pratt Institute. The Pratt Institute is a private university founded by oil tycoon Charles Pratt, whose goal was to provide affordable education to working-class men and woman. Here, Colman-Smith studied art for four years before eventually leaving the institute without a degree in 1897 (partly due to on-and-off illnesses she suffered throughout her studies). It is at Pratt that Colman-Smith studied under Arthur Wesley Dow, a highly influential artist and educator who served as chairman of the university. Under Dow's guidance, Colman-Smith was introduced to the cutting-edge art movements dominating Western art at the time -- namely, Art Nouveau and Symbolism, both of which are seen to have influenced Colman-Smith's later work. Dow's own aesthetic theories had a profound influence on Colman-Smith's illustrations, particularly his attempt to incorporate elements of Asian art into Western painting (Colman-Smith, in her own theoretical writings, employed Dow's conception of beauty in art, for example). After leaving Pratt, Colman-Smith found work as an illustrator, eventually illustrating for such renowned writers as W.B. Yeats and Bram Stoker.