27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘BLUE: The Life and Art of George Rodrigue' Review: A Louisianian Painter on PBS
During an interview for 'BLUE: The Life and Art of George Rodrigue,' the artist's son Jacques says that if you had called his grandmother a 'Cajun,' she might have slapped your face. But the 'derogatory term' that would have ticked off grandma was something his father—best known for his 'Blue Dog' paintings (see the Absolut vodka ads)—made into a brand. And a cause.
Rodrigue, who died in 2013, was a repository of influences both ethnic and artistic, much like current-day Cajuns themselves. Descended from the French-speaking Canadians exiled by the British after the invasion of Nova Scotia in 1755, the people who would eventually be called 'Cajun' found refuge in southern Louisiana and created a culture that food and music—and some say Rodrigue himself—channeled into mainstream America during the late 20th century.
