George Rodrigue’s Blue Dog sculptures are amongst his greatest artistic achievements. This month, in the garden of the Acequia Madre House Museum in Santa Fe, we installed George’s first public artwork in New Mexico. The 11-foot sculpture, made of steel, aluminum, and chrome, includes a unique chatoyant effect produced by three distinct shades of automotiveContinue reading “Rodrigue Sculpture in Santa Fe”
Category Archives: Sculpture
Priceless Puppies
It was twenty years ago, while halfway joking, that I surprised George Rodrigue with a white porcelain vase produced by artist Jeff Koons of his 3-D artwork, Puppy. George was unreserved in his criticism of Koons, and yet I also sensed his fascination with the artist who, among other things, fetches millions of dollars forContinue reading “Priceless Puppies”
Don’t Slow Me Down
In the spring of 2013 George Rodrigue and I drove our truck cross-country from New Orleans, Louisiana to Carmel, California, as we had twice annually for twenty years, finding adventure on alternate routes and detours along the way. We didn’t know that this would be our last road trip; however, we did travel with aContinue reading “Don’t Slow Me Down”
Shidoni: A Friendly Greeting
I returned recently, for the first time in five years, to Shidoni, a place where George worked regularly over three decades. Located in the lush Tesuque Valley, an oasis in the desert near Santa Fe, New Mexico, the foundry was George’s choice for some thirty years for transforming his clay sculptures into bronzes —whether three-dimensionalContinue reading “Shidoni: A Friendly Greeting”
Blue Dog Hog
George Rodrigue’s Blue Dog Hog premiered in 1994 in a New York City gallery called The Time is Always Now. This unique three-dimensional artwork dazzled at the center of the warehouse-type space, with George’s paintings, some as large as fifteen feet across, surrounding the bike. -click photos throughout to enlarge- The exhibition coincided with theContinue reading “Blue Dog Hog”
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 Glass and Other Unique Rodrigue Items
Although partial to paint on canvas, George Rodrigue experiments often with other mediums, creating the unexpected within his signature subjects. Printmaking is the most obvious other than painting, particularly his Cajun festival posters and Blue Dog silkscreens. (click photo to zoom, a cameo glass vase within Rodrigue’s home; the painting Loup-garou, 1991, hangs in theContinue reading “Blue Dog Glass and Other Unique Rodrigue Items”
A Number One Tiger Fan
From his earliest commission, a valuable lesson at age fifteen when the funeral home director Mr. Burgess refused to pay the agreed-upon fifty-dollar price for his portrait, George Rodrigue tossed around the pros and cons of outside projects. Everyone has an idea, most well meaning but ill advised. Human nature requests the obvious, and GeorgeContinue reading “A Number One Tiger Fan”
The Sketchbook
I titled this post and immediately laughed, because it reminded me of “The Reunion,” “The Body,” “The Therapist,” or any number of episode titles from “Matlock,” my latest mindless television escape. It was in 1960 that Coach Raymond Blanco, husband of former Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, famously threw George Rodrigue out of class forContinue reading “The Sketchbook”
Meet Tiffany, the Original Blue Dog
It was an accident that a terrier/spaniel mix named Tiffany found herself involved with an artist’s legacy years after her death. The Blue Dog, in truth, has little connection to the Rodrigue family pet. Instead, its roots lie in a Cajun story, the loup-garou, a scary legend about a werewolf-type dog that lurks in cemeteriesContinue reading “Meet Tiffany, the Original Blue Dog”
Santa Claus: Paintings and Sculptures Inspired by the Season
In 1979 George Rodrigue painted his four-year old son André with Santa Claus. As with most of his Cajun paintings, he manipulated a photograph to suit his needs, in this case cutting the figures out of the staged snapshot and placing them outside. André posed with Santa not beneath an oak tree, but at AcadianaContinue reading “Santa Claus: Paintings and Sculptures Inspired by the Season”
The Bronzes
George Rodrigue holds a deep appreciation for classicism in the visual arts. In a way, this embrace of time-honored techniques and subjects translates to a parallel within his own career, as even today he talks about his bronzes of the mid-1970s with reverence, recalling the process as though he worked alongside Donatello himself, paying tributeContinue reading “The Bronzes”
The Collector
During the summer of 2005, George Rodrigue and I joined his collectors Chris and Don Sanders in Europe for the Venice Biennale and Art Basel. Although we attended in the past, this was our first visit with the ‘in-crowd,’ and our group consisted of major gallery owners and big time art collectors, certainly well beyondContinue reading “The Collector”
A History of Evangeline in Rodrigue Paintings
There are enough Rodrigue Evangelines to fill an entire museum exhibition. He’s painted the Acadian heroine one hundred or more times over nearly forty years. Like Jolie Blonde, the Oak Tree, and the Blue Dog, she is a staple in his work, a protagonist as much for him as she is in the story ofContinue reading “A History of Evangeline in Rodrigue Paintings”
Blue Dog in Three Dimensions
Completed July 2012….. Three Heads are Better Than One (height: five feet; constructed of chrome, aluminum and steel; finished with acrylic and automotive paint), on view at the Rodrigue Gallery, New Orleans; click photo to enlarge- It was probably ten years ago that George Rodrigue started work in earnest on the concept of a Blue DogContinue reading “Blue Dog in Three Dimensions”