George Rodrigue (American/Louisiana, 1944-2013), "Boudreaux in a Barrel", 1972, oil on canvas, signed lower left, signed and inscribed en verso, titled, inscribed and artist stamps on stretcher, exhibition label with title and date on reverse of frame, 36 in. x 28 in., framed with artist and title plaque, overall 43 1/2 in. x 35 1/4 in. x 2 1/4 in. Provenance: Acquired from the artist; Roland Begneaud Family Collection, Lafayette, LA. Ill.: Acadia Parish Schools, Crowley High School. Mais, Jamais de la Vie! A Collection of Folklore from the Parish of Acadia. Crowley High School, Crowley, La.: 1976, cover; Freundlich, Lawrence S. George Rodrigue: A Cajun Artist. New York: Penguin Studio Rodrigue, 1996, p. 83, pl. 57; Art in America, Feb. 1973, p. 7; Rodrigue, George. The Art of George Rodrigue. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2003, p. 61; Rodrigue, George. The Cajuns of George Rodrigue. Birmingham: Oxmoor House Inc., 1976, p. 97. Exh.: Munchick & Franks Fine Arts Ltd., London, Feb. 10-17, 1973; “George Rodrigue Retrospective Exhibition”, Pensacola Museum of Art, Pensacola, FL, Apr. 2 – May 15, 2004; “Blue Dog: The Art of George Rodrigue”, Dixon Gallery and Gardens Museum, Memphis, TN, July 29 – Oct. 14, 2007; “Rodrigue’s Louisiana: Forty Years of Cajuns, Blue Dogs, and Beyond Katrina”, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA, Mar. 1 – June 8, 2008; “George Rodrigue: Cajuns and Blue Dogs / Paintings from Louisiana Family Collections 1971-2008”, Louisiana State Museum Wedell Williams Aviation and Cypress Sawmill Museum, Patterson, LA, July 17 – Nov. 29, 2008; “Blue Dogs and Cajuns on the River”, Louisiana State University Museum of Art, Baton Rouge, LA, July 23 – Sept. 18, 2011; “Blue Dogs in Texas”, Amarillo Museum of Art, Amarillo, TX, Aug. 10 - Oct. 14, 2012.Note: Roland Begneaud (1925-1997) was a pharmacist and engineer who opened Begneaud’s Pharmacy in the Oil Center of Lafayette in 1963, as a second location to the original founded by his father, Arista Begneaud, at the corner of South Buchanan and Congress Streets in 1939. In 1972, Dickie Hebert, childhood friend of George Rodrigue, worked as a pharmacist for Begneaud and introduced the two. By this time, Rodrigue had opened a small gallery on Pinhook Road in Lafayette, where he painted daily, and had begun to receive early recognition for his work. Begneaud recognized the talent of the emerging artist as well as the potential in investing in his work. Over the next ten years, he amassed the largest private collection of Rodrigue Cajun paintings to date, including some extraordinary classics such as “Boudreaux in a Barrel” offered here. This painting is one of Rodrigue’s most widely exhibited and illustrated works - an instantly recognizable star of the artist’s iconic and legendary oeuvre. Rodrigue first began utilizing photographs to add people into his Louisiana landscapes in the early 1970s upon the discovery of his mother’s photo album – answering his own question: “What would a person look like who walked out from behind one of my oak trees?” This painting was inspired by a photograph of the artist’s parents, aunt and uncle. Rodrigue’s mother, Marie Courregé Rodrigue stands on the far right, with his father, George Sr., in the middle. The figures are framed with the lines of an oak tree, so that they are locked into the landscape as if they were cut out and pasted there – a transplanted people just as the Cajuns were throughout their history. First from France and then from Canada, the group made a home for themselves in the swamps and prairies of south Louisiana following the Grand Dérangement of 1755. Rodrigue committed to “graphically interpret his Cajun culture” on his canvases, and his paintings from this era are laden with symbolism. As with all of Rodrigue’s compositions, there is nothing haphazard or done by chance, and displacing even one element, one hard edge or one shape destroys the composition. The tree, cut off at the top, creates a sliver of sky and a light in the distance, referencing the hope of the Acadians to make a home for themselves in a new land. The figures in white are illuminated as though under a spotlight, rather than the canopy of the tree, breaking the rules of art, as Rodrigue intended them to shine from within – to glow with their culture in a timeless expression of respect, love and recognition of the artist’s own roots. As Wendy Rodrigue has beautifully said of this painting: “So despite the fun in George’s title and the horseplay of its models, the dichotomy is clear. The painting is serious — in its subject, its symbolism, its strong design, and especially in the deliberate, focused way in which it’s painted. As a result, ‘Boudreaux in a Barrel’ is not only a classic Rodrigue, but also a defining piece of both Cajun and American art.”Ref.: Rodrigue, George. The Cajuns of George Rodrigue. Birmingham: Oxmoor House, Inc., 1976; Rodrigue, Wendy. “Blue Dog: In the Beginning, 1984-1989.” Musings of an Artist’s Wife. Oct. 19, 2009. www.legacyarttour.org. Accessed Mar. 9, 2023.

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