How a punk band accidentally found a $250,000 painting
The art world has seen a host of surreal thefts over the years. From the mystery of the 1990 heist of Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to the questions surrounding the whereabouts of Rembrandt‘s Landscape with Cottages following an armed robbery in Montreal in 1972, it’s a fascinating feature of the industry.
One of the most confounding robberies was in January 2015, when a man reportedly walked into the Rodrigue Gallery in New Orleans, removed George Rodrigue’s 1997 work Wendy and Me from the wall and walked out. What’s even more compelling about this case is that a local rock band accidentally uncovered the work afterwards.
Notably, George Rodrigue was a Louisiana native who began painting landscapes of the state in the late 1960s. This run of paintings was followed by outdoor family gatherings and an array of 19th and early 20th-century scenes. He is closely associated with moss-clad oak trees, common to the Acadiana region, an area also known as the Cajun Country. Displaying his inextricable link to the area’s Cajun culture, in the mid-1990s, Rodrigue found worldwide fame when he produced a series of Blue Dog paintings based on the Cajun legend of Loup-garou. He passed away aged 69 in 2013.
Rodrigue explained the meaning of the Blue Dog to the New York Times in 1998: “The yellow eyes are really the soul of the dog. He has this piercing stare. People say the dog keeps talking to them with the eyes, always saying something different. People who have seen a Blue Dog painting always remember it. They are really about life, about mankind searching for answers. The dog never changes position. He just stares at you. And you’re looking at him, looking for some answers, ‘Why are we here?,’ and he’s just looking back at you, wondering the same. The dog doesn’t know. You can see this longing in his eyes, this longing for love, answers.”
Rodrigue’s Blue Dog paintings were incredibly successful and the one stolen in New Orleans was valued at $250,000, as the New Orleans Advocate reported. The piece, known as Wendy and Me, is also noted for its extra sentimentality to the artist’s story, as it depicts him as a tuxedo-wearing blue dog, standing next to his wife, Wendy, dressed in a white gown. Luckily for its owners, it was stumbled upon by the local punk band Stereo Fire Empire, who had it safely returned to its owners.
The four-piece were on a night out at the House of Blues in New Orleans when they decided to go to another bar before home in the early hours of that Wednesday morning. Remarkably, the band had been discussing the heist not long before they discovered the painting.
Bassist Elliot Newkirk told the Advocate, “Literally five minutes later, we walked past the Rib Room on Royal Street, and there were these two paintings leaning up against the wall. We were like ‘holy shit, it’s the blue dog painting!'”
The punks then took the artwork to the local police station. However, at the time of the reports, the culprit was still at large. This was not the first time a Blue Dog was stolen, either. The previous year, two men were arrested for thieving one of Rodrigue’s paintings and selling it on Craigslist.
Rodrigue’s son, Jacques, who organised the exhibition from where Wendy and Me was stolen, told Art Daily of his gratitude: ‘We are so thankful for the good samaritans that saved this special artwork. Dad painted Wendy and Me for his wedding to Wendy so this is an irreplaceable piece to my family. We are overjoyed to have it returned undamaged.”
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