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.”
As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, the paintings of George Rodrigue offer a distinctive perspective on American identity. Born and raised in southwest Louisiana, Rodrigue spent much of his career interpreting the landscapes, people, and traditions of Acadiana before expanding his vision to engage broader national themes. His […]
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.
As America prepares for its 250th birthday 🇺🇸 we’ve been reflecting on how George’s art made its way to the White House — always in his own voice. #FBF
He painted President Reagan’s An American Hero (1986) and Vice President Bush with his grandchildren (1988) in his signature Cajun style: warm live oaks, storytelling, and that unmistakable Louisiana heart. These weren’t stiff official portraits. They were human, rooted, and deeply American.
By 1997, everything had evolved. For the official 53rd Presidential Inaugural print, President Clinton personally asked George to include the Blue Dog. What started as a Cajun loup-garou had become a national icon, welcomed into the highest levels of American life.
Swipe through to see the journey.
A Cajun artist from Louisiana helped shape how we see our presidents — and how our presidents saw us.
Which moment speaks to you the most? Tell us below ❤️
#GeorgeRodrigue #BlueDog #Americas250th #July4th
Beach Ball Bingo
2012/2026
Lithograph on paper • 18 × 36 in • Edition of 175
George Rodrigue, famous for his Blue Dog in Louisiana bayous, found fresh inspiration along coastlines—from childhood trips to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to California, Florida, and Hawaii.
In 2012 he painted Beach Ball Bingo: two Blue Dogs on the sand with three bright beach balls. Bold flat colors and simplified forms mix his Bayou Surrealist roots with Pop-art energy; the paired dogs add rare companionship. Subtle shifting blues separate sky from water, while richer tones mark the wet sand at the shoreline.
This joyful scene led to his beloved 2013 silkscreen Sit in Your Own Chair and echoes earlier coastal works like Hawaiian Blues (1998–99). Shown in the 2017 exhibition Rodrigue: American Beach, it is now available as a hand-pulled stone lithograph produced in France and estate-stamped.
Available online at link in bio ⬆️
#GeorgeRodrigue #BlueDog #BeachBallBingo #Lithograph
In 1991, George Rodrigue created a painting called Right Place, Wrong Time, featuring his iconic Blue Dog as the focal point. Early in the Blue Dog series, Rodrigue imagined the dog, inspired by his late pet Tiffany, as being on a journey to find him. In this narrative, Tiffany’s spirit mistakenly ended up in the wrong artist’s studio, adding a layer of playful mystique to the Blue Dog’s presence. In Right Place, Wrong Time, the Blue Dog appears in a surreal scene, set against a backdrop of nude figures inspired by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres’ 19th-century painting Turkish Bath. This juxtaposition is framed within one of Rodrigue’s signature Louisiana landscapes, characterized by dark, brooding oak trees, enhancing the painting’s enigmatic mood.
A year later, Rodrigue created duplicate versions of Right Place, Wrong Time in a different medium. In the early 1990s, Rodrigue occasionally created versions of his Cajun and Blue Dog paintings that were not lithographs or silkscreens but were done in multiples. He called these versions Direct Image Transfers (DIT), and they were primarily created at the request of a collector if a desired original painting was no longer available. You can think of a DIT as a high-quality, large-format photograph of a painting rendered on masonite board or canvas. Rodrigue usually covered these works with a layer of varnish to protect the image. We’ve added a UV plexiglass to preserve the work’s color and surface.
Rodrigue created DITs for a few years before committing fully to the printmaking process as a way to reproduce his work. For that reason, there are not many DITs in circulation.
Right Place, Wrong Time
1992
Direct Image Transfer on wood masonite
40 x 30 inches (sold framed as is)
Available and on display at Rodrigue Studios New Orleans. Contact us at [email protected] to learn more
In case you missed it . . . EMMY WINNER! 🏆
“Blue – The Life and Art of George Rodrigue” won the Outstanding Regional Documentary at the 47th National News & Documentary Emmy Awards last month in New York at Jazz at Lincoln Center!
This is a huge deal — only five regional documentaries from the entire country even get nominated each year. For a film made right here in New Orleans by our local station WLAE-TV, telling the story of a true Louisiana icon like George, to take home the national Emmy is something special.
Huge congratulations to director Sean O’Malley and the entire WLAE team at Rodrigue Blue Dog Film. Thank you to everyone who has supported the film from the very beginning — this one is for Louisiana and for George. 💙
Learn more at Documentary link in bio ⬆️
#EmmyWinner #GeorgeRodrigue #BlueTheDocumentary
For Father’s Day, a letter from Jacques Rodrigue to his Dad as published on NOLA.com in 2025 for the article, “Cupid, Emeril, George Rodrigue, more: Read Father’s Day letters from across Louisiana” linked here - https://bit.ly/rodriguefathersday
Dear Dad,
Nearly 12 years since you’ve been gone, yet your presence still guides me daily. You always supported your boys, André and me, and those memories fill my heart with gratitude for the lessons, love, and laughter. I recall our gallery home childhood, playing pool, watching Letterman while you painted, me on my canvas beside your easel.
I remember you on every adventure, recalling road trips in the van with my friends to art shows from coast to coast. You installed a TV/VCR for Nintendo and movies like Airplane!, Monty Python, and Mel Brooks classics we were probably too young for. While most adults dreaded managing kids, you dove in, spending weeks alone with us, laughing like one of us, making experiences like the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas birthdays unforgettable.
Our Saints and LSU fandom bonded us; Mardi Gras was electric with your revelry. For your 60th, we performed an epic Blues Brothers routine.
I strive to honor you, passing your traits and memories to my son, hoping to be the dad you were to me. You would’ve been an incredible grandfather. We miss you deeply. Thank you. Happy Father’s Day.
With gratitude, Jacques Rodrigue
pictured, Artist George Rodrigue and his son Jacques Rodrigue at the Acadiana Center for the Arts (AcA) in Lafayette, Louisiana, in 2009. This image was captured during the major retrospective exhibition George Rodrigue: Legends and Lives of Acadiana (March 14 – April 26, 2009, Main Gallery), which featured more than 60 original oil paintings on loan from local collectors.
Discover “Portrait of the Artist’s Father” one of George Rodrigue’s earliest pieces from 1965 (private collection). This 24 x 20-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]
As America prepares for its 250th birthday 🇺🇸 we’ve been reflecting on how George’s art made its way to the White House — always in his own voice. #FBF
He painted President Reagan’s An American Hero (1986) and Vice President Bush with his grandchildren (1988) in his signature Cajun style: warm live oaks, storytelling, and that unmistakable Louisiana heart. These weren’t stiff official portraits. They were human, rooted, and deeply American.
By 1997, everything had evolved. For the official 53rd Presidential Inaugural print, President Clinton personally asked George to include the Blue Dog. What started as a Cajun loup-garou had become a national icon, welcomed into the highest levels of American life.
Swipe through to see the journey.
A Cajun artist from Louisiana helped shape how we see our presidents — and how our presidents saw us.
Which moment speaks to you the most? Tell us below ❤️
#GeorgeRodrigue #BlueDog #Americas250th #July4th
For a moment, while studying at The Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, George Rodrigue considered pursuing a career in automotive design. While he ultimately decided to stick to fine art, he occasionally included cars in his paintings and printwork.
In The Devil In Me, an early print from 1991 Sold Out for decades, Rodrigue sets three dogs against a background anchored by a pink convertible. Rodrigue’s detailed depiction of the car’s front end and wheels speaks to that early interest in automobile design. In Rodrigue’s early silkscreen prints, the red dog symbolized the blue dog’s mischievous or, as the print’s title suggests, devilish side.
The Devil in Me
1991
Silkscreen on paper
22 x 28 inches
Signed: AP Edition
Available and on display at Rodrigue Studios New Orleans.
Inquiries: [email protected]
