http://ladigitalmedia.org/video_v2/asset-detail/LLOLG-1011
After you click on the above link and go to the new page, scroll down a bit and click on the play triangle in the center of the screen.
Three years later, in 1997, he was honored at the Louisiana Legends Gala Banquet.
After you click on the above link and go to the new page, scroll down a bit and click on the play triangle in the center of the screen.
The Louisiana Legends Awards Gala is a special annual event hosted by Friends of Louisiana Public Broadcasting that honors Louisiana residents who have distinguished themselves in a variety of disciplines and have brought honor to the state. The Louisiana Legends series highlights outstanding Louisianans who have distinguished themselves in a variety of disciplines including writing, art, entertainment, politics, public service and athletics.
I worked with Robert Rucker in the mid-1980's when he was commissioned to do a painting for the Covington chamber of commerce for the cover of their annual magazine. As editor of that magazine, I was putting together the photography and articles for the inside, and Rucker was creating a painting of the front gate of Bogue Falaya Park. Click on the image to make it larger.
Prints were also being made of the painting for the chamber to sell as a fund-raiser, and when it came time to do the "signing and numbering" of the prints, I did the numbering while he did the signing. He was great to work with and his art has definitely made Louisiana a better place since it encapsulates and memorializes Louisiana life, especially the riverboats and New Orleans music scene.
Click on the article below to make it larger and more readable.
On the steamboats.com website, more details are given about his life and motivations.
"Robert Rucker was a native of New Orleans, and he opened his own gallery in the French Quarter at the age of sixteen. Immediately, Rucker found himself surrounded by fine artists of the New Orleans area, like Knute Heldner and Clarence Millet, two of his earliest influences. At the age of seventeen, he developed polio, an event that led him to art.
"Because of his illness, the Louisiana Department of Education funded his schooling at the John McCrady School of Fine Arts in New Orleans. Rucker studied under McCrady for the next five years, developing a style that would later become synonymous with New Orleans and the surrounding countryside of the Mississippi Delta.
"Rucker's most famous subject is perhaps the steamboat. His love of them came from his family, having two grandfathers who were steamboat captains. He produced many variations on the theme during his career. He is also well known for various bayou scenes and the south Louisiana countryside, themes that he eventually began to render in an impressionistic style and often with pastel tones during the late 1970's and early 1980's.
"Rucker held exhibits in Baton Rouge and New Orleans as well as Chicago, San Francisco, St. Louis and Cleveland. In addition to being an art teacher at his own gallery, he was a textile designer, an art teacher for the City of New Orleans and a medical artist for Tulane Medical School. Robert Rucker died of a heart attack in 2001.
See also:
Wikipedia Article about Robert Rucker
Steamboat Paintings by Robert Rucker, page 1
Steamboat Paintings by Robert Rucker, page 2
Other "Louisiana Legends" have included Justin Wilson and Rolland Golden.
