Odalisque (Hey, Hey Frankenthaler)

Lynda Benglis

1969

Poured pigmented latex

Dallas Museum of Art

Lynda Benglis’s title refers to the poured paintings of Helen Frankenthaler, who is noted as being the bridge between Jackson Pollock’s poured-pigment style and the so-called color field school that relied on pigment stained into canvases for its effects. The term “odalisque” connotes the sensual reclining figures found in works by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and other “Orientalist” painters of the early to mid-19th century. Benglis seems to be signaling a new identity for the female artist, one who takes on the physically arduous techniques of the male artist, yet foregoes these artists’ ascetic and often forbidding aesthetic. In