Born Sept. 25, 1899, Garden Valley, Idaho; died Oct. 28, 1977, Boise
James Castle was born in rural southwest-central Idaho in 1899. His parents were the postmasters of the town Garden Valley for 23 years. Deaf since birth, Castle attended the School for the Deaf and Blind for a portion of his childhood. His family moved to Star, Idaho, in 1923 where they owned the Star Grinding Mill. After his father passed away, his mother moved the family to the outskirts of Boise in 1931. Castle remained in this home, which his sister owned after his mother’s passing, until his own death in 1977.
Not believed to have been taught traditional methods of communication for members of the deaf community and growing up in a time that largely did not accommodate people with disabilities, Castle used drawing as his most devoted form of communication. He worked at a daily artistic practice, accumulating an expansive collection. Largely untitled and undated, Castle’s work mostly took shape in three formats: drawings, books and assemblages (sometimes called constructions).
Both of these forms utilized found paper, scraps and cardboard, adding ink made of soot and saliva with occasional washes of homemade color. He rendered a precise sense of place, returning to themes of his rural environment, encounters with mass media and everyday life.
His nephew, as a student at the Museum Art School in Oregon, showed his professors examples of his uncle’s work, and, by the 1950s, Castle started to garner appreciation. Having immediately captivated the public with the skill and precision of his drawings, Castle earned himself his first gallery showing. He went on to have one-person exhibitions during his lifetime at the Boise Gallery of Art (now Boise Art Museum) in 1963 and 1976.
—Emily Q. Slavin, Intuit Art Museum curatorial fellow
