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Chronology
Ann Percy (Editor)
Description: James Castle: A Retrospective
James Castle: A Retrospective
Chronology
Author
Ann Percy (Editor)
PublisherPhiladelphia Museum of Art
Copyright© 2008 Philadelphia Museum of Art
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23022
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Chronology
1859
Francis (Frank) Castle, James Castle’s father, is born in England, possibly in Middlesex.
1862–63
Thomas Scanlon, James Castle’s maternal grandfather, comes to the Boise Basin from northern Idaho. He is there when gold is discovered in Grimes Creek in 1862, and he settles in the area the following year.
1866
Mary Scanlon, Castle’s mother, is born in Pioneerville (Hog’em).
1868
Frank Castle immigrates to the United States, with his parents or as an orphan or runaway.
1876
Frank is naturalized as a U.S. citizen in Utah.
1880
The U.S. census for this year shows Mary Scanlon, age fourteen, living in Garden Valley with her parents and six siblings.
Early 1880s
Frank Castle moves to Garden Valley.
1889
MAY 6
Mary Scanlon and Frank Castle are married in Boise, Idaho.
1890
JUNE 26
Mary and Frank’s first child, a girl whom they name Mary Blanche, is born.
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Description: Francis (Frank) and Mary Scanlon Castle with their first daughter, Mary Blanche,...
Fig. 409. Francis (Frank) and Mary Scanlon Castle with their first daughter, Mary Blanche, Garden Valley, Idaho, c. 1890. Courtesy of the Castle family
1892
APRIL 11
A second daughter, Eleanor Nora (Nellie), is born.
1893–94
A third daughter, Anna, is born but dies in infancy.
1894
A bill of sale for this year shows Frank and Mary selling twenty tons of hay, ten cows, seven calves, and four pigs to Thomas Scanlon, Mary’s father.
1896
JANUARY 8
Thomas Joseph (Joe), Frank and Mary’s first son, is born.
1897
NOVEMBER 10
Another daughter, Julia Hayes, is born.
1898
APRIL 18
Frank Castle files a homesteading claim for 160 acres in Garden Valley, establishing a home and ranch on the property.
1899
SEPTEMBER 25
James Castle is born about two months prematurely. It is not known when his parents first realize he cannot hear, but family members later recall that he was profoundly deaf from birth.
1899/1900
According to family tradition, Nellie contracts a bad case of measles that causes her to lose her hearing.
1900
JUNE
The U.S. census for Garden Valley (see p. 221 below) records Frank and Mary and their children Mary B. (9 years old), Eleanor (8), Thomas J. (4), Julia H. (2), and James C. (8 months).
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Description: The area around the former Castle ranch, Garden Valley, Idaho by Unknown
Fig. 410. The area around the former Castle ranch, Garden Valley, c. 1970s. Courtesy of the Castle family
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Description: The Castle's Garden Valley ranch, with the barn in the background by Unknown
Fig. 411. The Castles’ Garden Valley ranch, with the barn in the background, early 1900s. Courtesy of Joe Beach Jr., Portland, Oregon
1901
Mary and Frank Castle become the Garden Valley postmasters. At some point they add a small store selling such staples as flour and sugar.
1903
DECEMBER 8
A fifth daughter, Emma, is born.
1902
SEPTEMBER 18
The Castles expand their farm, buying an additional 160-acre lot.
1905
NOVEMBER 1
They have a sixth daughter, Agnes (Peggy).
1905–6
Relatives will later recall that James began drawing around this time.
1906
The Idaho State School for the Deaf and the Blind is established in an old elementary school building in Boise.
1907
FEBRUARY 15
The Castles file an application for Nellie to attend the new school for the deaf and blind.
A seventh daughter (unnamed) is stillborn.
1908
DECEMBER 8
The Idaho State School for the Deaf and the Blind’s building is severely damaged by fire, and the school subsequently relocates to the DeLamar Hotel in Boise until a new school can be built.
1909
Gooding is chosen as the site of the new school.
~
Description: The town of Gooding, Idaho by Unknown
Fig. 412. The town of Gooding, Idaho, 1909. Courtesy of the Idaho State Historical Society, Boise
1910
JUNE
The U.S. census for Garden Valley records the entire Castle family at home—Frank and Mary and their children Mary B. (Blanche), Eleanor, Thomas (Joe), Julia, James, Emma, and Agnes (Peggy).
SEPTEMBER
The Main Building of the Idaho State School for the Deaf and the Blind is completed in time for the start of the new school year (see figs. 36—37).
~
Description: Frank and Mary Castle, Garden Valley by Unknown
Fig. 413. Frank and Mary Castle, Garden Valley, c. 1910. Courtesy of the Idaho State Historical Society, Boise
1910–11
James begins attending the new school at Gooding in the fall or winter (he is receiving packages at the school beginning in March).
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Description: James Castle at about age eleven, Garden Valley by Unknown
Fig. 415. James Castle at about age eleven, Garden Valley, c. 1910–11. The photograph may have been taken just before James departed for school. The James Castle Collection, L.P. Courtesy of the J Crist Gallery, Boise, Idaho
1912
SPRING
The boys’ dormitory of the Idaho State School for the Deaf and the Blind is completed. Nellie graduates.
~
Description: Boys lined up outside the boys' dormitory at the Idaho State School for the Deaf and...
Fig. 414. Boys lined up outside the boys’ dormitory at the Idaho State School for the Deaf and the Blind, Gooding, c. 1912–13. James Castle is second from the right in the front row. Courtesy of the Idaho School for the Deaf and the Blind, Gooding
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Description: The boys' dormitory of the Idaho State School for the Deaf and the Blind, just after...
Fig. 416. The boys’ dormitory of the Idaho State School for the Deaf and the Blind, just after it was completed, 1912. Courtesy of the Idaho School for the Deaf and the Blind, Gooding
1915
JUNE
James leaves the Gooding school at age fifteen, without having learned to sign or speak and giving little indication that he can either read or write. At home, he rarely participates in the chores of the farm and household, spending his days drawing and collecting materials for his art instead.
1920
JUNE
The U.S. census for Garden Valley shows James and his siblings Joe, Julia (and her husband), Emma, and Peggy still living at home with their parents.
~
Description: Members of the Castle family, Garden Valley by Unknown
Fig. 417. Members of the Castle family, Garden Valley, c. 1920. In the back row (left to right) are Frank Castle, James’s father; James; Mary, his mother; Lela and Joe Castle, his sister-in-law and brother; and two unidentified people. In front are two of his sister Nellie’s children, Marjorie and Milton McCulley. The James Castle Collection, L.P. Courtesy of the J Crist Gallery, Boise, Idaho
1923
JUNE
Mary and Frank Castle buy land in Star, Idaho, and move there with James and Peggy. They leave behind all the drawings, constructions, and books James had bundled and stored in the house and outbuildings of the farm.
1927
JULY 1
Frank Castle, who has been in poor health for some years, dies.
1930
The U.S. census shows Peggy married and living with her husband, Guy Wade, in Middleton, Idaho, with her mother and James, and also Milton McCally (McCulley) and Rex C. Beach, sons of her sisters Nellie and Emma, respectively. (Nellie was widowed in 1928.)
1931
DECEMBER
Mary Castle buys a house and land on the outskirts of Boise in a neighborhood now called Pierce Park and moves there with James, Peggy and her husband, and Peggy’s year-old daughter Geraldine (Gerry). James’s art is again left behind. By now he has been drawing with his idiosyncratic materials—carved sticks and wads of cloth dipped into a mixture of stove soot and saliva—for many years, though it is not known when he developed this technique.
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Description: James Castle, Boise by Unknown
Fig. 418. James Castle, Boise, 1930s. The James Castle Collection, L.P. Courtesy of the J Crist Gallery, Boise, Idaho
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Description: James Castle next to one of the outbuildings on the family's farm in Boise by...
Fig. 419. James Castle next to one of the outbuildings on the family’s farm in Boise, c. 1950. The James Castle Collection, L.P. Courtesy of the J Crist Gallery, Boise, Idaho
~
Description: James Castle with Joe Beach Jr., son of his sister Emma (right), Boise by Unknown
Fig. 420. Castle with Joe Beach Jr., son of his sister Emma (right), Boise, 1950s. The James Castle Collection, L.P. Courtesy of the J Crist Gallery, Boise, Idaho
~
Description: The house where James Castle lived with his mother and sister, and later his...
Fig. 421. The house where Castle lived with his mother and sister, and later his sister’s family, the Wades, in Boise, 1980s. The James Castle Collection, L.P. Courtesy of the J Crist Gallery, Boise, Idaho
1932
Mary adds two plots of land to the Boise property, selling a portion of the land purchased in 1931 to one of the sellers (an apparent trade).
1934
MARCH
Mary sells the family’s land in Star.
1948
JANUARY 20
Mary Castle dies, having arranged for James’s care in her will. James continues living in the Boise house with Peggy and Guy Wade—who will be his guardians for the remainder of his life—along with their four children. As before, he devotes most of his days to drawing and making books and constructions at a desk in one of the outbuildings of the farm.
~
Description: James Castle with two of Peggy and Guy Wade's grandchildren, Boise by Unknown
Fig. 422. James Castle with two of Peggy and Guy Wade’s grandchildren, Boise, 1968. The James Castle Collection, L.P. Courtesy of the J Crist Gallery, Boise, Idaho
1950
Castle’s nephew Robert (Bob) Beach, son of his sister Emma, brings his uncle’s art to the attention of one of his teachers at the Museum Art School of the Portland Art Association (now the Pacific Northwest College of Art) in Portland, Oregon. They decide to send some of James’s drawings to a friend of Bob’s, Ben Kamihira, who is studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, for his evaluation. Kamihira shows them to a well-known painter and instructor at the Academy, Franklin Watkins, who pronounces the drawings not only art but quite good.
Bob Beach and one of his teachers, Michele Russo, travel to Boise to see more of Castle’s work.
1951
MARCH
James Castle’s first exhibition, a selection of drawings, opens at the Museum Art School in Portland. The dean of the school, William Givler, comments on the “emotional quality” of the drawings in an article in The Oregon Journal on March 11, adding that Castle’s “handling of his subjects is beautiful.”
1960
DECEMBER
Bob Beach, who is now a newspaper artist for The Oregon Journal, arranges a second exhibition of about forty of Castle’s drawings and some of his handmade books at the Campbell Hall Art Gallery of the Oregon College of Education in Monmouth.
1961/62
Bob Beach shows Castle’s work to Jack McLarty, an artist, art teacher, and dealer, who with his wife has just opened the Image Gallery in Portland.
1962
OCTOBER
McCarty organizes an exhibition at the Image Gallery of about fifty of Castle’s drawings, of which thirty-five sell. The show, titled A Voice of Silence, subsequently travels to the Bush House Museum in Salem, Oregon (now the Salem Art Association-Bush House Museum and Bush Barn Art Center). A spate of newspaper articles appears, with the writers unanimously speaking admiringly of Castle’s work while also marveling at his life story and unusual materials—soot and spit on recycled paper and cardboard.
NOVEMBER
With proceeds from the sale of his work over the past year, the Wades purchase a two-room Cozy Cottage house trailer for James, who had been wanting a place of his own for some time.
At some point the McLartys become Castle’s agents.
1963
JANUARY
The exhibition James Castle opens at the Boise Gallery of Art (now the Boise Art Museum). James attends the opening of the show, and the family donates four of his drawings to the museum.
DECEMBER
Castle is included in a group show, The Innocent Eye, at the Salt Lake Art Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. He attends the opening of the exhibition, taking perhaps his only trip outside Idaho.
~
Description: James Castle at the opening of his exhibition at the Boise Gallery of Art (now the...
Fig. 423. James Castle at the opening of his exhibition at the Boise Gallery of Art (now the Boise Art Museum), January 1963. His sister Peggy Wade is to his right. The James Castle Collection, L.P. Courtesy of the J Crist Gallery, Boise, Idaho
1965
APRIL
Another exhibition titled Voice of Silence opens at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland.
Mid- to late 1960s
Relations between the McLartys and Peggy and Guy Wade sour, and the Wades sever the association.
1967
NOVEMBER
An exhibition of Castle’s drawings opens at The Gallery in Seattle and is reviewed in the Catholic Northwest Progress by Father James H. Gandrau, who comments on Castle’s “rare talent” and the “beauty and loneliness of his silent world.”
1969
Castle is chosen for the exhibition Thirteen Idaho Artists at the Jewett Exhibition Center, College of Idaho, Caldwell.
1970
One of Castle’s “calendar” drawings is included in the traveling exhibition Symbols and Images: Contemporary Primitive Artists, organized by the American Federation of Arts, New York.
Early 1970s
Some of Castle’s old books are discovered in the walls of an abandoned outbuilding on the family’s former property in Garden Valley by Bill Pogue, a game warden, who gives them to the Boise Gallery of Art in 1976. The drawings are executed in pencil rather than soot and spit, and some are on the pages of Walsh’s arithmetic textbooks, which were used at the Idaho State School for the Deaf and the Blind in Gooding.
1974
APRIL 8–24
Castle is included in a three-person exhibition, Private Purpose, with Allen van Hoecke and Madge Gill, that is shown in two venues in Washington—Pullman and Spokane. There are books and at least one color drawing among Castle’s fifty-five works on display.
SUMMER
Castle has a one-person exhibition at the Foster/White Gallery in Seattle.
Two of his “calendar” drawings are illustrated in the book Twentieth-Century American Folk Art and Artists, by Herbert W. Hemphill Jr. and Julia Weissman.
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Description: James Castle's Cozy Cottage trailer, Boise by Unknown
Fig. 424. Castle’s Cozy Cottage trailer, Boise, August 1974. He is seated next to the trailer, with family members in the foreground celebrating a birthday. The James Castle Collection, L.P. Courtesy of the J Crist Gallery, Boise, Idaho
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Description: James Castle at age seventy-five with his sister Peggy Wade, his Cozy Cottage...
Fig. 425. James Castle at age seventy-five with his sister Peggy Wade, his Cozy Cottage trailer in the background, Boise, 1974. Courtesy of Clare Wiser, Pullman, Washington
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Description: James Castle by Unknown
Fig. 426. James Castle, 1974. Courtesy of Clare Wiser, Pullman, Washington
1976
An exhibition of Castle’s drawings opens at the Boise Gallery of Art. He is once again able to attend the exhibition.
1977
Castle’s worsening health leads to his move to the Good Samaritan retirement home in Boise. He continues to draw and to receive visits from his family.
OCTOBER 26
James Castle dies at St. Luke’s Hospital in Boise of sudden acute pulmonary edema following a heart attack. He is buried in Dry Creek Cemetery.
~
Description: James Castle's desk and working area in his Cozy Cottage trailer, as preserved by...
Fig. 427. James Castle’s desk and working area in his Cozy Cottage trailer, as preserved by his family, Boise, 1990s. The James Castle Collection, L.P. Courtesy of the J Crist Gallery, Boise, Idaho
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Description: James Castle's desk with some of his working materials and examples of his art...
Fig. 428. Castle’s desk with some of his working materials and examples of his art spread out, 1990s. The James Castle Collection, L.P. Courtesy of the J Crist Gallery, Boise, Idaho
Chronology
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