Renowned Acadiana artist George Rodrigue has made the New Orleans Museum of Art very, very happy. On March 1, NOMA debuted Rodrigue’s Louisiana: Cajuns, Blue Dogs, and Beyond Katrina, a 40-year retrospective of Rodrigue’s work. The 14-week exhibit closed last weekend with a blowout party featuring Rodrigue, Chef Paul Prudhomme and clarinetist Pete Fountain, attracting more than 6,000 visitors for the show’s final days.
The final-weekend tally was just the tip of the iceberg. The total number of visitors was 52,813 — a NOMA record for most visitors for an exhibition of work by a living artist. The exhibit benefited NOMA in other ways, too; the museum gained 545 members during the run, and NOMA also notes that its gift shop did “robust business” throughout the Rodrigue exhibit.