James Edward Deeds Jr.

In 1970, a book of drawings was discovered in a Springfield, Missouri dumpster by 14-year-old Reid Henderson. The book contained 283 hand-bound illustrations by an artist who wouldn’t be identified until they went public in 2011: James Edward Deeds.

Born in Panama in 1908, his family moved to McCracken, Missouri in 1912. Edward was viewed by his family as “well-meaning but increasingly troubled youth, with difficulty adjusting socially and further complicated by a disciplinarian father incapable of nurturing a child with special needs.” His behavior eventually led to his being distanced from the family by moving him out of their home to live in the original farmhouse on the property.

Eventually Edward’s frustration erupted in a threat of violence towards his brother. That outburst coupled with his mother’s fear of potential further violence toward family members, prompted Edward’s father to seek hospitalization for his son. Deeds’ reaction was to attempt suicide, which exacerbated the situation by making him a danger to himself and others.

Societal and cultural norms of the day permitted persons to be admitted to state-operated institutions for a number of reasons. His initial admission was to the Missouri School for the Feebleminded in November of 1933. His time spent at that facility, may have contributed to the secondary diagnosis of “moderate mental retardation” following him in his transfer in 1936 to Nevada State Hospital No. 3.

Deeds’ drawings, done during his thirty-seven-year stay as a patient in Nevada State Hospital No. 3, drawn mostly in pencil and crayon, are delicately executed. His scenes are innocent, often fanciful and notably devoid of suffering, violence, or the anger one might associate with an artist presumably under psychological or emotional stress. Visual sources for each drawing likely stem from National Geographic magazines Deeds received from his family, or books he accessed in the hospital’s library, and even firsthand experiences both in the hospital and its environs, as well as his own rich imagination.