1944-2013. Born and raised in southwest Louisiana, “Cajun Country,” George Rodrigue preserved on his canvas what he feared was his dying heritage — including its land, people, traditions and mythology. It was a Cajun legend, the loup-garou, that spawned his most famous series,
2026 Emmy® Award Winner BLUE: The Life and Art of George Rodrigue is airing on public TV stations and streaming exclusively via PBS Passport. Presented by WLAE New Orleans and distributed by American Public Television.
“I grew up feeling a strong relationship to the old things, to the old culture, and I got a stronger feeling when I went to Los Angeles to school. I really started to understand how different I was and how different my Louisiana was.”
The Bayou Collection by George Rodrigue (1944-2013) is on view at the Walter Anderson Museum of Art in Ocean Springs, Mississippi (August 10, 2026–January 9, 2027). Organized by the LSU Museum of Art, the exhibition presents all forty of the collection’s original paintings created between 1981 and 1984 for […]
I’ve always approached painting knowing that my job is not to make an accurate representation of a subject–
IT’S GOT TO TRANSCEND THAT.
Discover the original painting, “My Favorite Part of Town” a striking piece by George Rodrigue from 1991 (private collection). This 30 x 24-inch oil on canvas is our featured Catalogue Raisonné work of the week.
If you own a unique George Rodrigue artwork, the Rodrigue family invites you to share details for inclusion in the comprehensive catalogue raisonné documenting his life’s work.
For submission guidelines and more information, visit https://georgerodrigue.com/catalogue-raisonne/ or reach out at [email protected]
In 1996, George Rodrigue created a series of five monumental Blue Dog works, each measuring 14 feet high by 8 feet wide. Painted in acrylic on vinyl, the banners were installed in the interior of Union Station in Washington, D.C., for Rodrigue’s Blue Dog for President exhibition. Created during a presidential election year, the works welcomed visitors into a show of patriotic-themed Blue Dog paintings.
Of the five banners, one entered the permanent collection of the LSU Museum of Art, two remain in the Rodrigue Family Trust, and two were acquired by Texas businessman and major Rodrigue collector Don Sanders. Rodrigue Studios is now pleased to offer these two works from the Sanders collection — the largest Rodrigue paintings ever to come to market.
Due to their scale, Rodrigue painted the series in an industrial warehouse rather than his studio. Working with rich, visible brushstrokes, he enlarged the Blue Dog to a size that underscores its transformation from the Cajun loup-garou into a powerful graphic symbol, emphasizing the dog’s distinctive shape and intense yellow eyes.
In one banner, the Blue Dog appears against a black background wearing a red necktie patterned with white stars — a direct reference to presidential campaign imagery and the American flag. In the other, the Blue Dog stands against a color-blocked background of red and yellow, the composition reduced to its essential elements: the dog’s silhouette, its captivating yellow eyes, and the saturated color fields.
On the occasion of the nation’s 250th anniversary, Rodrigue Studios presents these banners as a recognition of George Rodrigue’s contribution to America’s visual language through enduring cultural symbols such as the Blue Dog. Both works are now on view for the first time in New Orleans at the artist’s flagship gallery on Royal Street.
Untitled, Blue Dog with Tie (Blue Dog For President Banner)
Untitled, Blue Dog on Red and Yellow (Blue Dog For President Banner)
1996
Acrylic on vinyl
168 x 96 in. or 14 x 8 ft
Available and on display at Rodrigue Studios New Orleans
Inquiries: [email protected]
#GeorgeRodrigue #BlueDog #RodrigueStudios #FrenchQuarter
Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie (1847) is an epic poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, describing the tragic account of two lovers, Evangeline and Gabriel, separated on their wedding day during the expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia.
Reunited in old age, Evangeline, now a nun, tended to Gabriel in the last few minutes of his life, when she happened upon him by chance as she cared for the sick in Pennsylvania.
This heartbreaking and romantic story inspired many artists, including George Rodrigue, who painted her more than one hundred times in his career, oftentimes painting her as she waited for Gabriel beneath the Evangeline Oak in southwest Louisiana. He used several models for Evangeline, including a waitress he barely knew, a silent movie actress (Dolores del Rio) he never knew, and most often the daughter of his good friends Bertha and Curtis Bernard. He photographed Diane Bernard Keogh during several sessions in the 1970s and used these same photographs for Evangeline paintings over the next twenty years, including this one.
A Basket of Roses
An Original Silkscreen Designed by George Rodrigue
Designed 1989/Printed 2017
26 x 20 inches (image) 31 x 23 inches (paper)
Estate Stamped, Open Edition
Available at Rodrigue Studios and online: https://shop.georgerodrigue.com/products/a-basket-of-roses-1
Blue Dog 2027 - Buy Now!
The new Blue Dog 2027 Wall Calendar features twelve works by George Rodrigue, bringing his iconic Blue Dog to every month of the year.
Now in stock on Amazon at Link in Bio ⬆️
#GeorgeRodrigue #BlueDog #BlueDog2027 #LouisianaArt
Who Dat from Rodrigue Studios. ⚜️💙
Good luck to the New Orleans Saints as they open their 60th season in Detroit today.
Pictured: We Are Marching Again, 2006, Original silkscreen by George Rodrigue, 23 x 18 inches
After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, George created Blue Dog Relief — a series of prints that raised nearly $3.5 million for Gulf Coast humanitarian, arts, and education needs. We Are Marching Again was the strongest sign of optimism in that series: Blue Dog in Saints black and gold, eyes forward, as New Orleans and its team began to look ahead again. Rita Benson LeBlanc and the Saints championed the print throughout the 2006 season — the first season back in the Superdome.
Twenty years later, that same spirit still marches.
Today this print is not sold in Rodrigue galleries. It lives on exclusively through the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts Print Donation Program. Nonprofits can purchase an estate-stamped edition for $500 to raffle or auction at their events. If the print does not raise more than that investment, GRFA refunds the full amount. Since 2009, the program has helped more than 1,000 organizations raise over $3 million — supporting causes across the community and arts education in Louisiana.
Learn more: https://georgerodriguefoundation.org/what-we-do/print-donation/ @rodriguefoundation
Let’s go Saints. We are marching again.
#WhoDat #Saints #GeorgeRodrigue #BlueDog #WeAreMarchingAgain GRFA NewOrleans RodrigueStudios
Discover the mixed media, “MM07” a striking piece by George Rodrigue from 2012 (private collection). This 22 x 30-inch acrylic paint and silkscreen ink on illustration board is our featured Catalogue Raisonné work of the week.
If you own a unique George Rodrigue artwork, the Rodrigue family invites you to share details for inclusion in the comprehensive catalogue raisonné documenting his life’s work.
For submission guidelines and more information, visit https://georgerodrigue.com/catalogue-raisonne/ or reach out at [email protected]
We remember.
Twenty-five years ago tonight, George Rodrigue sat in shock like so many Americans, then turned to his easel. By 5 a.m. on September 12, 2001, he had finished God Bless America—the Blue Dog drained of its color, yellow eyes turned red with grief, the flag behind it.
Prints of that painting raised $500,000 for the American Red Cross. It was how George knew to help.
In his own words, written that morning:
“On the night of September 11, 2001, like Americans everywhere, I sat in shock over the events of the day. As I’ve done many times in my life, I turned to my easel and paints for comfort.
At 5 a.m. the next morning I stared with my wife at the painting I’d just finished. As we looked from each other to the canvas, we knew that I’d made a powerful and accurate statement of our feelings. We discussed our desperation — our wanting to help in some way.
I realized as we spoke that in donating the sales from a print of this painting to the relief effort, others might be comforted as they dealt with their own grief and desire to help. Created in the depths of my personal sadness, the painting reflects the feelings of many, many people.
I first thought to paint the dog black, as if in mourning. Instead I painted it without color at all, the blue joy drained by shock and grief. (Some people have commented that the lack of color reminds them of the television footage of debris-covered people running on the streets of New York City.) For many years the dog has had yellow, happy eyes. On this day, however, the eyes are red, indicating a heavy heart.
I am proud to be from the United States of America. It is our spirit, strong in the symbol of our flag, which will mend our broken hearts and allow us to use these events to strengthen our courage and compassion.”
— George Rodrigue, September 12, 2001
We honor the nearly 3,000 lives lost, the first responders, and all who still carry that day. May remembrance meet us with the courage and compassion George hoped this painting would help restore.
#NeverForget #September11 #GodBlessAmerica #GeorgeRodrigue
On the eve of a solemn anniversary, this CBS Sunday Morning conversation from George Rodrigue’s 2008 New Orleans Museum of Art retrospective still lands with quiet force.
Standing with the painting he made on September 11, 2001—God Bless America—Rodrigue said:
“This is what says America has got destroyed. America has got attacked and we are all sad about it. All of the color has dropped out of me. I have no color left.”
He painted the Blue Dog without its familiar blue. The eyes turned red. The color, he said, had gone out of him—and out of the country. Then he did what he always did: he put the work to use. Prints of that image raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Red Cross in the days that followed.
Twenty-five years later now, the painting is a record of grief, and of the instinct to answer grief with something useful.
TBT #GeorgeRodrigue #BlueDog #GodBlessAmerica #NeverForget #CBSSundayMorning
