[3] In New York, he often visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he was particularly inspired by the work of El Greco, Rembrandt, Goya, and Van Gogh.

He studied painting at the Art Students League of New York under Sidney Dickinson; and at The New School with John Dobbs and Carmen Cicero.

Integrating illusionistic space with flattened surfaces, and contrasting loose and tight brushstrokes, the artist enters a dialogue with centuries of art concerned with these same pictorial issues.

"[10] His 1974 painting Y me quedé sin nombre is the first work by a Dominican-born New York artist to be acquired by the Whitney Museum of American Art.

In 1994, Rodríguez's work was shown as part of the American contingent at the IV Bienal Internacional de Pintura en Cuenca, Ecuador.