NEW ORLEANS - Police are searching for the man who walked into George Rodrigue's French Quarter Art Gallery, and walked out with two Blue Dog paintings.
The incident occurred while the store was open Friday.
The two stolen paintings are part of a three-painting series called "Three Coins in a Fountain."
The three paintings are meant to hang together, and are valued at $55,000 for the series.
"When I did it vertically," Rodrigue said, "I wanted to sort of gimic a traffic signal."
The three paintings are just the head of the famous Blue Dog, inspired by Rodrigue's late puppy Tiffany, in different shades of blue and on different colored backgrounds. All three paintings are 12" by 12."
The two stolen paintings are 2.5" thick. The center painting, which wasn't stolen is 4" thick. Rodrigue believes it wasn't taken because it didn't fit into the thief's bag.
"On a Friday it starts to be getting very, very busy,” he said. “Sometimes, there are 40 or 50 people in the gallery. This time, there was him and two people sitting at a desk."
The thief was captured on surveillance tape strolling down Royal Street and into Rodrigue's gallery.
"Either he wasn't aware of the cameras, or he didn't care about the cameras,” said Rodrigue. “He didn't disguise himself and he just walked right in front of the three cameras."
The white male then went to the back of the gallery, opened a door marked "Private" and looked inside. With the back of the gallery unoccupied, the man walked to the side wall, out of range of cameras, and put two of the paintings in his bag.
"It's the only position in the gallery, and the only size paintings anybody could possibly take without being noticed," he said.
Rodrigue said he plans to hold on to the remaining painting in the "Three Coins in a Fountain" series, until the other two are found.
New Orleans Police ask anyone with information on this case to call Crimestoppers at (504) 822-1111.
