Rodder – James Castle: Dimensions

Installation view from James Castle: James Castle: Dimensions

Rodder is pleased to announce James Castle Dimensions, an exhibition dedicated to the singular work of self-taught artist James Castle (1899–1977). Presenting fourteen drawings, works on paper and objects from private collections, this exhibition will showcase the remarkable range of Castle’s practice. Deaf from birth and working outside the influences of travel, formal training, and the commercial art world, Castle produced a complex, deeply personal, and formally rigorous body of work that transcends conventional categories of medium and material.

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James Castle, Untitled (white bowl with green design)

James Castle, Untitled (Time Magazine Book), 1933–1940

James Castle, Untitled (grey plaid jacket)

James Castle, Untitled (Figure on Porch/ Chair on Porch)

James Castle was born in 1899 in the sparsely-populated mountain community of Garden Valley, Idaho. James, the fifth of seven surviving children, was deaf from birth. Castle began drawing as a child and continued to do so his entire life, but the primary body of his surviving work was made between 1931 and his death in 1977.

Castle’s art remained largely private until 1951 when his nephew introduced his drawings to faculty at an Oregon college. Interest in his work grew quickly and exhibitions of his work soon opened in Portland and Idaho. In 1963, the Boise Art Museum presented his first major solo exhibition. In the decades since, Castle’s legacy has grown, with significant retrospectives at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2008) and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid (2011), and his inclusion in the 2013 Venice Biennale. His works are currently included in To Vincent: A Winter’s Tale, a group exhibition inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s correspondence at Fondation Vincent Van Gogh Arles (Arles, France). His work is in the collections of major institutions including The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL); The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, MA); The Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY); The National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.); The Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, PA); and The Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY).

Image: James Castle, 1963. Image courtesy of the James Castle Collection and Archive.