Starting in the early 1980s, George Rodrigue began receiving commissions
for portraits of important Louisianans. In typical Rodrigue fashion, these
figures were treated in the same manner as his Cajuns, often clothing them
in ghostly white and floating the figures in an Acadian, oak-treed landscape,
using his same tree-ground-sky format.
Rodrigue’s earliest portraits were of literary and liberal arts figures,
including portraits of Shirley Ann Grau and Walker Percy, painted for the
Flora Levy lecture series at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. These
were followed closely by political portraits of former Louisiana governors,
Huey “Kingfish” Long and Earl K. Long, precursors to his later
political portraits of American Presidents, Reagan, Bush and Clinton, as well
as Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev, which brought him significant public
attention.
In addition, he painted a number of musicians – local bands, such as
the Romero Brothers trio, and popular, well known figures such as Hank Williams,
Jr. In 1994 Rodrigue received a commission for a portrait of Louis Armstrong
to be used as the official poster for the 1995 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage
Festival, beginning his succession of Jazz Fest commissions for portraits
of Mahalia Jackson, Pete Fountain and Al Hirt.
Among his other portraits are those of local culinary personalities such as
Paul Prudhomme and other chefs, whose creations have brought national attention
to the regional cuisine, and other prominent physicians and businessmen. In
addition, Rodrigue has also celebrated his own family including portraits
of his two sons, Jacques and André as young boys, and self-portraits
– both as a young boy growing up in New Iberia and in adulthood as an
artist preserving his Cajun heritage.