Kelsey Murphy

From New Iberia, Louisiana, George Rodrigue is known for his Blue Dog series, inspired by his long-deceased childhood pet, Tiffany, whom he posed with other animals and people for his popular paintings and prints. 

Rodrigue had early art talent, and while ill for nearly a year, he used watercolors and crayons to pass the time, and this activity set his future. He studied at the University of Southwestern Louisiana and in Los Angeles at the Art Center College of Design. For a while, Rodrigue painted Abstract Expressionist works but then went back to creating paintings that reflected his own Cajun culture, including folk tales and bayou and swamp landscapes. 

Gradually a black and white spaniel, based on his childhood companion, Tiffany, increasingly appeared in Rodgrigue's paintings and became the Blue Dog, now a compelling and humorous Pop figure in his original works and silkscreen reproductions. In 2000, representatives of the Xerox corporation commissioned Rodrigue with a multi-million dollar contract to do a series of Blue Dog paintings to promote their printers. 

Rodrigue was also the artist for the Absolut Vodka ads and created the artwork for three New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival posters. The 1995 poster, with the portrait of Louis Armstrong, as well as the one created in 1996 that featured Pete Fountain, have become collector's items. 

Rodrigue and his wife, Wendy, created the House of Blues Foundation Room to support arts and cultural programs for youth. Money is raised through the sale of his paintings. A George Rodrigue museum is in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Find original George Rodrigue posters and Blue Dog paintings on 1stDibs.

(Biography provided by Louisiana Art, LLC)

Perhaps one of the most influential contemporary art movements, Pop art emerged in the 1950s. In stark contrast to traditional artistic practice, its practitioners drew on imagery from popular culture — comic books, advertising, product packaging and other commercial media — to create original Pop art paintings, prints and sculptures that celebrated ordinary life in the most literal way.

ORIGINS OF POP ART

• Started in Britain in the 1950s, flourished in 1960s-era America
• “This is Tomorrow,” at London's Whitechapel Gallery in 1956, was reportedly the first Pop art exhibition
• A reaction to postwar mass consumerism
• Transitioning away from Abstract Expressionism
• Informed by neo-Dada and artists such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg; influenced postmodernism and Photorealism 

CHARACTERISTICS OF POP ART 

• Bold imagery
• Bright, vivid colors
• Straightforward concepts
• Engagement with popular culture 
• Incorporation of everyday objects from advertisements, cartoons, comic books and other popular mass media

POP ARTISTS TO KNOW

• Richard Hamilton
• Andy Warhol
• Marta Minujín
• Claes Oldenburg
• Eduardo Paolozzi
• Rosalyn Drexler
• James Rosenquist
• Peter Blake
• Roy Lichtenstein

ORIGINAL POP ART ON 1STDIBS

The Pop art movement started in the United Kingdom as a reaction, both positive and critical, to the period’s consumerism. Its goal was to put popular culture on the same level as so-called high culture.

Richard Hamilton’s 1956 collage Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? is widely believed to have kickstarted this unconventional new style.

Pop art works are distinguished by their bold imagery, bright colors and seemingly commonplace subject matter. Practitioners sought to challenge the status quo, breaking with the perceived elitism of the previously dominant Abstract Expressionism and making statements about current events. Other key characteristics of Pop art include appropriation of imagery and techniques from popular and commercial culture; use of different media and formats; repetition in imagery and iconography; incorporation of mundane objects from advertisements, cartoons and other popular media; hard edges; and ironic and witty treatment of subject matter.

Although British artists launched the movement, they were soon overshadowed by their American counterparts. Pop art is perhaps most closely identified with American Pop artist Andy Warhol, whose clever appropriation of motifs and images helped to transform the artistic style into a lifestyle. Most of the best-known American artists associated with Pop art started in commercial art (Warhol made whimsical drawings as a hobby during his early years as a commercial illustrator), a background that helped them in merging high and popular culture.

Roy Lichtenstein was another prominent Pop artist that was active in the United States. Much like Warhol, Lichtenstein drew his subjects from print media, particularly comic strips, producing paintings and sculptures characterized by primary colors, bold outlines and halftone dots, elements appropriated from commercial printing. Recontextualizing a lowbrow image by importing it into a fine-art context was a trademark of his style. Neo-Pop artists like Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami further blurred the line between art and popular culture.

Pop art rose to prominence largely through the work of a handful of men creating works that were unemotional and distanced — in other words, stereotypically masculine. However, there were many important female Pop artists, such as Rosalyn Drexler, whose significant contributions to the movement are recognized today. Best known for her work as a playwright and novelist, Drexler also created paintings and collages embodying Pop art themes and stylistic features.

Read more about the history of Pop art and the style’s famous artists, and browse the collection of original Pop art paintings, prints, photography and other works for sale on 1stDibs.