George Rodrigue painted the Aioli Dinner in 1971 based on photographs of a gourmet dinner club, the Creole Gourmet Society. This was his first painting with people, and during the six months that he painted their portraits and a landscape on this single canvas, he developed a style uniquely his own and recognizable today, fortyContinue reading “Rodrigue’s Bicentennial Poster”
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Read Me the Blues
I’ve loved libraries from the time I was a kid. During the mid-1970s I worked at the library at New Heights Elementary School in Fort Walton Beach, Florida for extra credit, and it was there that I discovered James Michener and, at age ten, read Hawaii, a book that shocked me to my young, innocent core,Continue reading “Read Me the Blues”
Blue Dog on the Defensive
Twenty-two years ago I moved from New Orleans to Carmel-by-the-Sea, an easy decision even for a gal with little knowledge of California beyond The Grapes of Wrath (hardly a ringing endorsement). In the tiny artist’s village I grew, over time, a little less naïve, facing the controversy naturally attached to an art gallery full ofContinue reading “Blue Dog on the Defensive”
Museum News (Rodrigue on the Walls)
Updated with additional exhibitions, August 1, 2012- If you were lucky enough to see the Rodrigue retrospective exhibitions in 2007 in Memphis and 2008 in New Orleans, then you know the power of such shows. For those who sought the Blue Dog, the Cajuns and Portraits piqued their interest, as they learned of Rodrigue’s twenty-fiveContinue reading “Museum News (Rodrigue on the Walls)”
Blue Dog and Intellectual Property (Guest Blog Entry)
Guest blog entry by Jacques Rodrigue, George Rodrigue’s son. He currently serves as House Counsel for Rodrigue Studio and Executive Director of the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts. He is a graduate of Tulane Law School in New Orleans. Greetings everyone! Jacques Rodrigue here. Wendy is taking a much-deserved break this week from bloggingContinue reading “Blue Dog and Intellectual Property (Guest Blog Entry)”
Farmer’s Market
Since the early 1970s George Rodrigue set out to preserve on his canvas Louisiana’s Cajun heritage. Following his return to New Iberia from art school in Los Angeles, he noticed dramatic changes in the southwest parishes, and he feared that the Cajuns, his people, faded quickly as a distinct culture within America. Growing up, heContinue reading “Farmer’s Market”
Who Will She Be Today?
George Rodrigue’s newest silkscreen, Who Will She Be Today?, is a rare style among his prints. Only a handful of his Blue Dog works on paper originate with paintings. Usually, as explained in the post “Silkscreens,” he creates the design on tracing paper or, more often, within his computer, printing an original image unrelated toContinue reading “Who Will She Be Today?”
Washington Blue Dog (and the Blue Dog Democrats)
In 1992 George Rodrigue painted Washington Blue Dog, a tribute to the United States of America’s capitol, Washington, DC. The painting is one of his most famous. Its prints hang in the offices of Blue Dog Democrats and their affiliates, an obvious choice for the group. The original oil on canvas (48×60 inches), owned byContinue reading “Washington Blue Dog (and the Blue Dog Democrats)”
The Human in the Painting
“She was like a woman of Leonardo da Vinci’s, whom we love not so much for herself as for the things that she will not tell us.” –Cecil Vyse, A Room with a View by E.M. Forster, 1908 Certain paintings, particularly a certain era of paintings, transport us, if we let them, to another ageContinue reading “The Human in the Painting”
Moonstruck, Madame Butterfly and the Mudlark
“Bring me the big knife; I’m gonna cut my throat!”* Several nights ago, as we walked in a chilly, blowing drizzle across the street from the Metropolitan Opera, I stopped, even as the crosswalk sign suggested we proceed. “What are you doing?” asked George Rodrigue, as I explained that I saw Cher in my head,Continue reading “Moonstruck, Madame Butterfly and the Mudlark”