George Rodrigue

Rodrigue's early notable works include The Aioli Dinner,[8] which divides its time between the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and The Class of Marie Courrege,[9] which won an honorable mention from Le Salon[10] in Paris, France, 1975, prompting the French newspaper, Le Figaro, to dub Rodrigue "America's Rousseau."

In 2004, Rodrigue came to Shreveport with another incoming Democratic governor, Kathleen Blanco of Lafayette, with whom he made an appearance at the Louisiana State Exhibit Museum, where he autographed Hathaway's menu from more than twenty years earlier.

[22] In October 2013, George and his wife Wendy told the New Orleans Magazine that Rodrigue had been diagnosed in 2012 with Stage 4 lung cancer and that tumors had spread throughout his body.

Days after the disaster, he created We Will Rise Again, depicting the American flag covered with water, to benefit the Red Cross in response to Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans.

To directly benefit the New Orleans Museum of Art, which was closed for six months due to flood damage, he also painted Throw Me Something FEMA and You Can't Drown the Blues.

Sales proceeds from silkscreen prints and related campaign materials — including T-shirts, lapel pins, bumper stickers and buttons — were donated to NOMA.

Louisiana 2-1-1 (an easy-to-remember Information & Referral phone number) seeks to eliminate barriers to reaching human-service agencies — particularly in the wake of disasters such as Hurricane Katrina.

As of September 2006, the donation tally to Blue Dog Relief beneficiaries was $700,000, including a check for $100,000 that Rodrigue presented to NOMA on March 3, 2006, to help kick off its grand re-opening: "The HeART of New Orleans," a three-day weekend celebration of the arts.