Untitled

Copied James Castle, Untitled, ca. 1931-1977, found paper and soot, 5 x 6 1⁄2 in. (12.7 x 16.5 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the James Castle Collection and Archive and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2013.27.3

Artwork Details

Title
Untitled
Artist
Date
ca. 1931-1977
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
5 x 6 1⁄2 in. (12.7 x 16.5 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of the James Castle Collection and Archive and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
Mediums Description
found paper and soot
Classifications
Object Number
2013.27.3
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2013.27.3

Artwork Description

James Castle used drawing and collage to speak his mind. Although he was best known for drawings of the Idaho landscape, Castle's creative investigations of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks are among his most intriguing.

For Castle, spoken and written language presented realms beyond reach. The artist was deaf from birth and, despite some schooling, never became fluent in alternative communications such as lipreading, signing, reading, or writing. Over many decades, Castle made unique arrangements and booklets that stabbed at deciphering texts from the world around him: communiques that prompted conversation for others, but remained, for him, impenetrable.

Although Castle's quest to unlock the secrets of the written word did not prevail, his artworks reveal, uniquely and powerfully, a decoder's approach to understanding the world and the artist's lifelong pursuit of human connection.