The Foundation for Self-Taught American Artists is pleased to announce its first production: James Castle: Portrait of an Artist, a documentary film directed, written, and produced by Jeffrey Wolf. Click here to view the trailer
James Castle was born deaf in 1899 in central Idaho’s remote Garden Valley. He refused to learn to read, write, sign, or finger-spell, but was obsessed from an early age with making art. Since his death in 1977, Castle has gained world recognition as a prominent self-taught artist. James Castle: Portrait of an Artist is an hour-long documentary film that reveals the artist’s life and creative process, as told by family members, art historians, curators, artists, collectors, and members of the Deaf community. A true case of triumph of the spirit, Castle’s inspirational story is one of monumental achievement.
Two months premature, Charles James Castle was the seventh of eight children born to Mary Nora Scanlon Castle, a mid-wife, and Francis John Castle, the local postmaster. Growing up in the early 1900s American West, with the “can do” culture and hard work that frontier-life symbolized, Castle exemplified this regional character and pioneering spirit.
Though Garden Valley was isolated, the Castle residence was a rustic social center, serving not only as family home, but also as the community's post office and general store. In the mail came publications designed for the pew (The Catholic Sentinel and liturgical calendars), the plow (scores of almanacs and periodicals devoted to animal husbandry, agriculture, and gardening), and the outhouse (Sears and Roebuck catalogues)—a favorite source for drawings and collaged illustrations. Everywhere, the tactile allure of packaging, twine, rope, paper, envelopes, cardboard, heavy cloth, and leather stimulated Castle’s imagination.
Castle used drawings to examine everything in sight. With a mixture of stove soot and his own saliva on tips of sharpened sticks, he recorded his immediate surroundings—the interior and exterior of his house, the shed, the barn—in drawings with perfect perspective and almost scientific attention to detail. Castle was supported by his family in his zeal to produce, which resulted in works stacked and bundled by the thousands—drawings, books, and constructions that thoroughly captured his singular view of the world.
James Castle: Portrait of an Artist features interviews with Castle’s nieces, nephews, great-nieces, great-nephews, and cousins; Gooding School Museum curator Jerry Wilding; gallerists Jacqueline Crist, Frank Del Deo, and John Ollman; curators Ann Percy, Sandy Harthorn, and Robert Storr; painters Stephen Westfall and Terry Winters; art historian John Yau; frontier historian Byron Johnson; Castle collector and concert pianist Christian Zacharias; and Idaho singer-songwriter Rosalie Sorrels. The experts describe Castle’s personal history, brief education at the Gooding School for the Deaf, and artmaking process, along with a critical assessment of the artist’s work. Layered with images of the Boise Basin, vernacular architecture, and the artwork themselves, the film unfolds episodically—revealing a sensitive portrait of Castle: his rustic milieu, his tangible isolation, and his prolific art production.
James Castle: Portrait of an Artist is produced by the Foundation for Self-Taught American Artists. The Foundation’s mission is to create a deeper understanding and broader appreciation of self-taught art through the production, acquisition, and dissemination of documentary films—supported by an engaging and dynamic website—to educate and inspire growing audiences of diverse communities. Most self-taught American artists have come from very humble backgrounds, and their resonant stories demonstrate that artistic achievement can be found in unexpected places.
James Castle is the perfect subject for the Foundation’s first documentary film by Hollywood film editor Jeffrey Wolf. In 2005, Wolf began the filming of James Castle: Portrait of an Artist, a creative manifestation of his commitment to the art and film worlds. Since the 1970s, Wolf has been actively involved in the self-taught field, all the while balancing his passion for this important genre of contemporary art and his professional career as an editor and director.
Jeffrey Wolf is the writer, director, and editor of James Castle: Portrait of an Artist, which represents his vision—a way of telling the James Castle story that focuses on the merits of his art production and while showing various aspects of the artist’s life as a means of enriching the viewers’ understanding and appreciation of the artwork.
Support for James Castle: Portrait of an Artist has been provided by the Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation, the Christian R. & Mary F. Lindback Foundation, the Judith Rothschild Foundation, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and individual donors. This program is supported in part by a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, a State-based program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.