Untitled (Figure) [verso]
n.d.
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
color wash on paper
Dimensions
sheet: 10.16 × 9.53 cm (4 × 3 3/4 in.) irregular
Classification
Drawing
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of James Castle Collection and Archive, and Acquisition with Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund
Accession Number
2013.33.25.b
Art Historical Context
James Castle's *Untitled (Figure) [verso]* (n.d.) invites viewers into the enigmatic world of this self-taught American artist, who worked in isolation on his family's Idaho farm. Rendered in color wash on a modestly sized, irregular sheet of paper—measuring just 4 × 3¾ inches—this drawing depicts a figure on the verso side, showcasing Castle's intimate focus on the human form. Deaf and illiterate, Castle (1899–1992) developed a distinctive visual vocabulary without formal training, producing thousands of works from found materials and homemade pigments. The color wash technique, involving di...
About the Artist
James Castle
**James Castle: A Self-Taught Visionary of Rural America** James Charles Castle was born on September 25, 1899, on a remote farm in Garden Valley, Idaho, to Frank and Mary Castle, local postmasters and the parents of seven children, of whom he was the fifth. Profoundly deaf from birth, Castle attended the Gooding School for the Deaf and Blind from ages ten to fifteen but never mastered sign langu...