Description:

George Rodrigue (American/Louisiana, 1944-2013), "Blue Dogs on the Red River", 2011, acrylic on canvas, signed lower right, signed, titled, and dated en verso, 40 in. x 60 in., original frame. Exh.: George Rodrigye: Blue Dogs, Louisiana Governors and Russian President Gorbachev, Louisiana State Exhibit Museum, Shreveport, Sept. 23-Dec. 30, 2011. Note: George Rodrigue had a long history with Shreveport and northern Louisiana, appreciating the culture and history there just as much as that of the southern portion of the state with which he was most associated. In the late 1970s, Rodrigue held his first exhibition in Shreveport at a bank, organized by Carl Jones, a prominent Shreveport oilman who admired his work and introduced Rodrigue to the local collecting community. Shreveport and the surrounding area would be frequent stops on Rodrigue’s many road trips selling and delivering his paintings across the South. During the 1980s, Rodrigue’s artwork became increasingly well-known regionally and nationally, and he developed immense popularity across the state with his colorful festival posters celebrating Louisiana’s heritage, both north and south. He was commissioned to create posters for Ducks Unlimited, first the Shreveport Chapter around 1980 and then the National Chapter’s convention in New Orleans in 1985, and he was invited to design the poster for the Louisiana State Fair in Shreveport in 1983. Rodrigue visited Shreveport again in the late 1990s to attend the Red River Revel in 1997, 1998 and 1999, creating the official poster each year for sell-out crowds. In 2011, Rodrigue returned to Shreveport for a major exhibition of his work Blue Dogs, Louisiana Governors and Russian President Gorbachev at the Louisiana State Exhibit Museum, featuring paintings from the permanent collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art, private collectors and the artist’s personal archives. The work offered here, “Blue Dogs on the Red River” was created by the artist as the archetype of the 2011 exhibition, celebrating the city and the artist’s love of Louisiana. The idea of the Red River appealed on multiple levels to Rodrigue, an artist focused on color, design and symbolism and one who always displayed a sense of humor. He had throughout his career painted Louisiana - its rivers, roads, oak trees, and people (or their Blue Dog counterparts) as individual elements blended into a cohesive whole, nowhere more evident than in this masterful painting from the height of his mature style. Ref.: Rodrigue, Wendy. “Rodrigue on the Red River.” Musings of an Artist’s Wife. Sept. 1, 2011. www.wendyrodrigue.com. Accessed Oct. 18, 2017.

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November 18, 2017 10:00 AM CST
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