George Rodrigue’s artworks are featured at the European Cultural Centre’s Personal Structures exhibit during this year’s Venice Art Biennale. Explore twelve pieces spanning Rodrigue’s illustrious career at the Palazzo Bembo.
Personal Structures is the biennial contemporary art exhibition organized and hosted by the European Cultural Centre in Venice, Italy. The 7th edition will run from 20 April until 24 November, 2024 during the Venice Art Biennale. Click here for a virtual tour.
Please refer to the Venice Object List for comprehensive artwork details, and feel free to contact us to inquire about the pricing and availability of the exhibited pieces.
The group show seeks to document the diversity of contemporary art in today’s world, aiming to feature and combine different expressions from visual artists, galleries, as well as photographers, sculptors, institutions, and universities, that break away from any ideological, political and geographical barriers.
Born in Louisiana, George Rodrigue (1944-2013) is best known for his Blue Dog series of paintings, which brought him worldwide acclaim as the dog evolved into an icon of American pop art. Yet Rodrigue’s early career focused on portraying what he feared was his dying Cajun heritage and Louisiana’s land, people, and traditions.
Throughout his career Rodrigue gained recognition for his work. In 1974, he was accepted into Le Salon of the Société des Artistes Français in Paris. Rodrigue received one of their Honorable Mention awards. Later, Rodrigue became Louisiana’s official Artist Laureate. Rodrigue worked with international brands like Absolut Vodka, Neiman Marcus, and Xerox creating art driven campaigns that appealed to Rodrigue’s early art school training in advertising design.
This selection of work highlights the visual evolution in Rodrigue’s work from the Cajuns to the Blue Dog. The grouping emphasizes his unique place in twentieth- and twenty-first-century art history. George Rodrigue passed away on December 14, 2013, at the age of sixty-nine, from cancer.
Breaking from an established European tradition of painting landscapes with spacious skies, Rodrigue chose to bring the oak tree to the foreground of his canvases, compressing the visible sky in his paintings. What resulted were dark, moody depictions of the landscape. The oak tree would become a recurring motif in Rodrigue’s work.
Rodrigue began incorporating people into his paintings in the 1970s, often using the oak tree to frame his figures. The people in Rodrigue’s work are Cajuns, French-speaking Acadians who settled in South Louisiana after being driven from their Nova Scotia homeland by the British in 1755.
Much of Rodrigue’s work on the Cajuns sought to document their cultural traditions. He painted musicians, fishermen, and chefs, both regular and historical figures, who tell the long history of the Cajun people. Rodrigue often painted the character of Evangeline, the heartbroken protagonist from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, Evangeline a Tale of Acadie. Considering both the past and present, real and imagined people in his work opened Rodrigue to exploring surrealism, which is evident in a painting like A Safe Place, Forever.
George Rodrigue conceived of the Blue Dog in 1984 as an illustration of the loup-garou, a mythical werewolf from French-Canadian folklore. Rodrigue based his depiction of the loup-garou on his dog Tiffany. He painted the loup-garou in settings similar to his Cajun paintings throughout the 1980s, but over time, the image changed; the artist brought the Blue Dog out of landscapes and into the realm of his imagination.
The dog became bluer, its shape more graphic, and its persona friendlier. Rodrigue’s transformation of the Blue Dog made it an appealing image for advertising partnerships. Rodrigue created the painting, The Free Life, on view here for a campaign with Xerox. In the 2000s, Rodrigue took a minimalist approach with the Blue Dog, emphasizing color and shape, as seen in Wheel of Fortune and Round the Mulberry Bush.
The Blue Dog has grown into a familiar icon and taken on countless meanings for viewers. The paintings can evoke feelings of sadness, mystery, humor, or love.
“The dog is sitting there asking questions about life. With the Cajuns, I preserved the past, but with the Blue Dog, I can comment on life today and also ponder the future.” George Rodrigue, 2012
Rodrigue’s desire to represent the Blue Dog in mediums beyond painting pushed him to experiment with new materials. For years, he searched for a way to design a standing sculpture of the Blue Dog that would retain the integrity of the dog’s shape. Following much experimentation, he landed on a three-sided sculpture made from aluminum, painted with acrylic paint, automotive paint, and sealer.
To create Swamp Dogs, Rodrigue combined photography, painted imagery, and elements of printmaking. The Blue Dogs appear on a large sheet of aluminum Dibond, resulting in a unique, updated perspective of the Louisiana landscape. Because of the aluminum surface the dogs appear slightly transparent. Regarding Swamp Dogs, Rodrigue said, “The loup-garou is in the water, through the water, and part of the water.”
While attending art school in Los Angeles, Rodrigue deepened his appreciation for the titans of art. Artists like Michelangelo, Ingres, and Manet influenced Rodrigue, specifically when it came to depictions of the human figure. Such an influence is evident in The Finish Line. A provocative painting of a reclining nude, The Finish Line demonstrates both Rodrigue’s adeptness at figure painting and the Blue Dog’s versatility. Often categorized as pop art owing to its graphic design and saturated color, in The Finish Line, Rodrigue brings the dog into the realm of surrealism. By combining the classical nude with a deconstructed Blue Dog, Rodrigue highlights the unexpected associations common in surrealism.