George Rodrigue Studio

George Rodrigue painted what exile becomes. Born in New Iberia in 1944, he spent his career painting the landscape, folklore, and people of Acadiana — the twenty-two Louisiana parishes where French-speaking Acadian refugees settled after the British expelled them from Canada at the end of the Seven Years' War. The Acadians intermarried with other settlers and formed what became known as Cajun culture. Rodrigue's paintings gave that culture a presence in fine art it had never had. His first exhibition in 1970 sold out despite a critic calling it dreary and monotonous. He painted moss-clad oak trees. He portrayed Evangeline, the Acadian heroine from Longfellow's epic poem. Between 1985 and 1989 he painted the Saga of the Acadians, fifteen paintings chronicling the Acadian journey from France to Nova Scotia to Louisiana. In 1984 he painted a loup-garou ghost dog using his deceased pet Tiffany as the model. The first painting in the series bears the title *Watch Dog*, painted for *Bayou*, a book of Louisiana ghost stories. He changed the eyes from red to yellow and removed the sinister roots after hearing gallery visitors call them blue dog paintings. The Blue Dog became one of the most recognized images in American Pop art. Absolut Vodka honored him as an Absolut artist in 1992, joining Andy Warhol. Rodrigue died in Lafayette on December 14, 2013. His studio on South College Road still sells original work and is open to visitors.