Category Archives: Rodrigue Video Narrative

Wendy Rodrigue’s opening remarks during a new exhibition of her late husband’s paintings at the Carnegie Visual Arts Center in Decatur, Alabama. During the pre-opening week, Wendy lead school tours of the exhibition, hosting 800 children, plus families, educators, and community groups. George Rodrigue: The River is the Road continues through April 7, 2024. SponsoredContinue reading ““George Rodrigue: The River is the Road” at the Carnegie Visual Arts Center”

Jan 13, 2024: The story behind George Rodrigue’s iconic 1978 painting of antiques dealer, Rodney Fontenot, the Ragin’ Cajun of Ville Platte, Louisiana.  See the original painting on view at the Hilliard Art Museum at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, home of the Ragin’ Cajuns, as part of their exhibition, “Sitting with George Rodrigue,”Continue reading “Ragin’ Cajun (1978) by George Rodrigue”

Jan 1, 2024: “He inspired me,” said George Rodrigue, when I interviewed him in the summer of 2012 about his 1985 portrait of Zydeco legend Clifton Chenier. “Still does. He didn’t curl up and let his disease stop him, even after losing a foot to diabetes. He kept on playing.” Following his cancer diagnosis inContinue reading “Clifton Chenier (1985) by George Rodrigue”

Dec 9, 2023: Rodrigue left this painting on his easel in Carmel, California, in progress prior to his last trip to a Houston, Texas hospital on October 30, 2013.  Ever optimistic, he titled it Don’t Slow Me Down, after Aesop’s Fable, The Tortoise and the Hare. December 14, 2023 marks the tenth anniversary of Rodrigue’s death.

George Rodrigue’s first painting with people is his Aioli Dinner of 1971. The scene is an all-male gourmet dinner club that met monthly from 1890-1920 on the lawn of large homes in and around Rodrigue’s hometown of New Iberia, Louisiana. The women, standing in the back row, cooked; the young men, standing along the sides,Continue reading “Eat, Drink and Forget the Blues
(Aioli Dinner Dog)”