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.
🎨 Calling all Louisiana high school juniors & seniors! 🎨
The George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts has announced the theme for the 2027 Scholarship Art & Songwriting Contest:
“Rising Waters, Enduring Roots: 100 Years after the 1927 Flood.”
A century ago, the Great Mississippi Flood reshaped Louisiana. George Rodrigue’s own mother, Marie, witnessed it as a young woman in New Iberia. She later recalled sitting in church when she heard a loud whoosh and deep rumbling, stepped outside, and saw the floodwaters rolling straight toward her. She ran in terror, shouting that the water was coming. The trauma stayed with her for life—she sandbagged her house ahead of every rain.
That same resilience runs through Rodrigue’s art. From his early Cajun landscapes like High Water on Whiskey Bay to the Blue Dog in We Will Rise Again competed after Hurricane Katrina (pictured)—a watchful guardian partly submerged, red-eyed with a broken heart, and marked with a Red Cross call for help—he painted water as both beautiful and perilous, life-giving and destructive.
This year’s contest invites you to explore that dual nature of water and the enduring roots of Louisiana. Create original visual art or an original song (2–5 minutes) inspired by personal or family flood stories, cultural memory, environmental lessons, hope amid destruction, or the strength of sandbagging and rebuilding.
Prizes:
Visual Art: 10 finalists (5 juniors + 5 seniors) share $19,000 in scholarships. Winning works tour exhibitions across Louisiana.
Songwriting: 3 finalists share $6,000. First place performs at Trombone Shorty Foundation & Trombone Shorty Music Academy Shorty Fest in May 2027.
Open to all Louisiana high school juniors and seniors (public, private, charter, or home school). No GPA requirement.
Full details at Link Tree in bio ⬆️
Show us Louisiana’s high water and high spirit. We can’t wait to see what you create. 💙⚜️
#GeorgeRodrigue #BlueDog #RodrigueFoundation #LouisianaArts #RisingWatersEnduringRoots ArtContest SongwritingContest SupportYoungArtists
Discover the original mixed media, “Metal 5_13” a striking piece by George Rodrigue from 2013 (private collection). This 48 x 32-inch remastered digital print with acrylic paint on Dibond aluminum 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 2003, George Rodrigue painted LSU’s Mike the Tiger reclining in one of the artist’s signature Louisiana landscapes. Prints of the image originally raised enough funds to complete construction of the tiger’s world-class new habitat on the campus of LSU.
Learn more and purchase online at Link Tree in bio ⬆️
Originally created in 1996 for George Rodrigue’s landmark Blue Dog for President exhibition at Union Station in Washington, D.C., Stars and Stripes and Me represents one of the clearest expressions of the artist’s lifelong exploration of patriotism, identity, and American culture.
Although many associate George Rodrigue’s patriotic imagery with the Blue Dog, his fascination with the American flag began decades earlier in his celebrated Cajun paintings. Here, those two defining themes come together as the Blue Dog stands before a field of stars and stripes—a powerful reminder that America’s greatest strength lies in the many regional stories and traditions that shape our shared identity.
As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary, this image remains as meaningful today as when it was first created nearly thirty years ago.
Stars and Stripes and Me
Original Silkscreen by George Rodrigue
Designed 1996 • Printed 2026
26½ × 21 inches (image size)
Estate Edition of 150
Available now at Rodrigue Studios and online at Link Tree in bio ⬆️
#TBT 💙 🏆
Throwback to May 28, 2026 — the night “Blue – The Life and Art of George Rodrigue” won the 2026 News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Regional Documentary at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York.
This national honor celebrates George’s remarkable story of resilience: from teaching himself to paint while bedridden with polio as a child, to documenting and preserving Cajun culture, responding to Hurricane Katrina, and transforming a mysterious loup-garou into the world-famous Blue Dog that captured imaginations everywhere.
Haven’t watched the Emmy-winning film yet? There’s still time! Stream “Blue” now on PBS Passport through your local PBS station.
Full details, awards, and how to watch at Documentary Link in Bio ⬆️
Share your favorite moment from the film or a favorite Blue Dog memory below. 💙
#ThrowbackThursday #GeorgeRodrigue #BlueDog #EmmyWinner BlueTheDocumentary PBSPassport CajunCulture
When George Rodrigue began incorporating people into his landscape paintings in the early 1970s, he often painted historical scenes showing how Cajuns made a home for themselves in America during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This painting, Early Military Cadre, speaks to the role military service plays in establishing national identity.
The figures in this painting wear white uniforms; Rodrigue often painted his Cajun figures in white clothing, using the color to symbolize hope for their future in Louisiana. The composition of this painting takes a slight deviation from Rodrigue’s typical oak tree anchored landscape backgrounds. Here, a structure, perhaps a military barracks, grounds the image, creating a visual path to the painting’s light source—a glowing white light in the landscape’s distance.
Early Military Cadre
1982
Oil on canvas
30 x 40 in.
Newly available and on display at Rodrigue Studios New Orleans
Inquiries: [email protected]
Hoppy Poppy
1994
Acrylic on canvas
36 x 24 inches
Available and on display at Rodrigue Studios New Orleans
Inquiries: [email protected]
George Rodrigue painted Hoppy Poppy during a period in his career when he began to conceive of the Blue Dog in new ways. During the mid-to-late 1990s, Rodrigue painted several canvases that humanized the Blue Dog, specifically representing the dog as a man. This style of work was heavily featured in the 1999 book Blue Dog Man, which explores how the artist and his creation evolved in tandem.
Hoppy Poppy demonstrates how Rodrigue often depicted the humanization of the Blue Dog through clothes like the shirt, tie, and sports coat the dog wears in the painting. This masculine depiction of the Blue Dog is complemented by the yellow poppies Rodrigue has painted along the green background of the canvas. As with many of Rodrigue’s Blue Dog paintings, part of Hoppy Poppy’s charm is the unanswerable questions it poses to viewers.
Monumental Blue Dog still on view on Royal Street 💙🇺🇸
Back in August, Jacques Rodrigue and gallery associate Douglas displayed one of George Rodrigue’s largest works from the balcony of our flagship gallery at 730 Royal Street. The piece is a 14-foot-high by 8-foot-wide acrylic-on-vinyl banner from the 1996 Blue Dog for President series, originally created for the exhibition at Union Station in Washington, D.C.
Painted in a warehouse because of its massive scale, this banner shows the Blue Dog against a black background wearing a red necktie patterned with white stars — a clear reference to presidential campaign imagery and the American flag. With bold, visible brushstrokes, Rodrigue turned the Cajun loup-garou into a powerful American graphic symbol.
Two of these historic banners from the Don Sanders collection are still available — the largest Rodrigue paintings ever to come to market. In honor of America’s 250th anniversary, they’re on display now at Rodrigue Studios New Orleans.
Untitled, Blue Dog with Tie (Blue Dog For President Banner)
1996 | Acrylic on vinyl | 168 × 96 in. (14 × 8 ft.)
Available and on display at Rodrigue Studios
Inquiries: [email protected]
Come experience these monumental works in person.
#BlueDog #GeorgeRodrigue #RodrigueStudios #NewOrleans #FrenchQuarter America250 BlueDogForPresident
