James Castle

Exhibitions, CV, Press




James Castle was born in 1899 in Garden Valley, Idaho, and died in 1977 in Boise, Idaho. A major retrospective of his work was mounted at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA (2008) and traveled to The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (2009), and the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA (2010). Other solo exhibitions of his work have been presented at Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C. (2014); Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain (2011); Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID (2005); and The Drawing Center, New York, NY (2000), among many others. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the 55th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2013); the Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, WA (2005); Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (2004); American Folk Art Museum, New York, NY (2002); and The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (2000), among others. Most recently his work has been on view in Outliers and American Vanguard Art at the National Gallery National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C that will travel to the High Art Museum, Atlanta, GA in Summer 2018, and to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA in late 2018. Castle's work is included in the collections of the American Folk Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the High Museum in Atlanta, GA; the Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID; and the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL.





James Castle
Untitled (goose with red tail), n.d. found paper, string and color of unknown origin
10h x 11 1/2w x 3/4d in
25.40h x 29.21w x 1.91d cm

JCas 603



James Castle
Untitled (white bird with red head), n.d. found paper, string and color of unknown origin
10 3/8h x 7w x 3/4d in
26.35h x 17.78w x 1.91d cm

JCas 604

James Castle
Untitled (Friends with Books), n.d.
soot and saliva on found paper
3 7/8h x 4 7/8w in
9.84h x 12.38w cm

JCas 425


James Castle
Untitled (Building with Trees), n.d.
soot and saliva on found paper
8 3/4h x 10 1/4w in
22.23h x 26.04w cm

JCas 691

James Castle
Untitled (Parade Float and Crowds), n.d.
soot, saliva and color of unknown origin on found paper
9 1/4h x 15 5/8w in
23.50h x 39.69w cm

JCas 692

James Castle
Untitled (Shed with sawhorse/shed), n.d.
soot and saliva on found paper
5 1/2h x 7 3/8w in
13.97h x 18.73w cm

JCas 678

James Castle
Untitled, n.d.
soot and saliva on found paper
4 3/4h x 8 3/4w in
12.06h x 22.23w cm

JCas 609

James Castle Untitled (Sheds with Black Totem), n.d.
soot and saliva on found paper
4 3/8h x 9w in
11.11h x 22.86w cm

JCas 610

James Castle
Untitled (House in landscape), n.d.
soot and saliva on found paper
9h x 12w in
22.86h x 30.48w cm

JCas 694


James Castle
Untitled (Porch/landscape), n.d.
soot and saliva on found paper
6 1/4h x 6 1/4w in
15.88h x 15.88w cm

JCas 687


James Castle
Untitled (Landscape), n.d.
soot and saliva on found paper
3 1/4h x 7 1/8w in
8.26h x 18.10w cm

JCas 232


James Castle
Untitled (Room Interior), n.d.
soot and saliva on found paper
8 3/8h x 9 3/4w in
21.27h x 24.77w cm

JCas 657

James Castle
Untitled (Redwood tree), n.d.
soot and saliva on airmail envelope
4 1/2h x 5 1/8w in
11.43h x 13.02w cm

JCas 649

James Castle
Untitled (Figures in A Row Boat), n.d. color of unknown origin on found paper
4 3/4h x 6 3/4w in
12.06h x 17.14w cm

JCas 586



James Castle
Untitled (six panels of symbols on envelope), n.d. soot and saliva on found paper
3 1/2h x 6 1/2w in
8.89h x 16.51w cm

JCas 590



James Castle
Untitled (text page with symbols), n.d.
soot and saliva on found paper
17 7/8h x 12w in
45.40h x 30.48w cm

JCas 620




James Castle
Untitled (Cyrillic inspired letterforms and dollar signs), n.d.
soot and saliva on found paper
4 1/4h x 8 1/4w in
10.79h x 20.95w cm

JCas 624