the first biography of the life of bridget bate tichenor, chapter xii: ascension

7/23/2019 THE FIRST BIOGRAPHY OF THE LIFE OF BRIDGET BATE TICHENOR, CHAPTER XII: ASCENSION

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THE FIRST BIOGRAPHY OF THE LIFE OF

BRIDGET BATE TICHENOR

TX, PA, PAU COPYRIGHTS 2006 & 2009

Writers Guild Registration TX 1382590 2008

Zhringen

Derived from

Bridget Bate Tichenor The Mexican MagicRealist Painter

TX, PA, PAU COPYRIGHTS 1990, 2000, 2006, & 2009

TXU 1 321 112 11/6/06

By

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Zachary Selig

www.zacharyselig.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zachary_Selig

Bridget Bate Tichenor Copyright Estate of GeorgePlatt Lynnes 1945

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http://www.zacharyselig.com/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zachary_Selighttp://www.zacharyselig.com/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zachary_Selig


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INTRODUCTION

The mesmerizing story of the Magical Realist painter Bridget Bate

Tichenor has not been told. It is not just a story. It is an

extraordinary and riveting story of a remarkable female artist who

impacted the 20th Century world of fashion, art, and society with

enormous contributions.

Revealed are the intimacies and secrets of an outwardly beautiful,

exotic, bold, and courageous, yet painfully shy and reclusive woman

who lived in extraordinary times, hither to the unknown world or her

peers and colleagues.

Bridgets life was led in an astonishing way in many contrasting

countries and in many revolutionary platforms on a level of

excellence that has not been recognized or acknowledged outside

small eccentric art circles.

Bridget adhered to rarefied and noble standards of human pride,

integrity, respect, discipline, and compassion. These humane traits

she honored above all else in life. Bridgets impeccable personal

values in tandem with her determination and prioritization to

execute her artistic vision are the essence of her story, which creates

historical value as her world message.

Bridget inherited a peripatetic world from her self-absorbed,

famous, and creatively gifted parents that fueled deep insecurities

fed by fears of abandonment. Subsequently, she reinvented herself

by necessity and by choice to mold herself into the world that she

needed to fit into at any given time in order to survive.

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Bridget's mother, Vera Bate Lombardi (Sarah Gertrude Baring

Arkwright Fitzgeorge Bate Lombardi) was an indomitable

combination of beauty and bravado with the highest connections.

From 1925-1939, Vera became CoCo Chanel's muse and socialadvisor and liaison to several European Royal Families. Her

demeanor and style influenced the 'English Look, the very

foundation for the House of Chanel.

The beautiful, noble, artistic, and rich are different and

misunderstood or condemned, yet granted societal privileges few

receive. These very qualities that embodied her unique style

influenced and were copied by some of the greatest names of the20th century, who were capable of creating a mass appeal through

their vision that she ignited. She was loved and envied, but most of

all she was awe-inspiring.

Bridget had an amazing and tragic multidimensional life that was

filled with an arranged marriage, fantasies, true loves, romantic and

professional rivalries, artistic achievements, mysticism,

perfectionism, and shattered dreams. All of which was portrayed inthe most glamorous world settings with famous personalities and

eccentric nobility that she orchestrated into a dramatic metaphysical

theater of magical relationships.

Her controversial royal illegitimate background overshadowed her

profound artistry and her sense of self worth. In her era and society,

it was important to be of royal lineage. Her achievement in the art

world was diminished by who she was as an illegitimate royal

family member, her ravishing beauty, her refined intelligence, andher commanding personality.

Her glittering background was more important and interesting to her

friends, which graciously made her celebrated and received on one

hand, yet made her hide how great an artist she was on the other and

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minimally acknowledged. This is why she was so shy about

showing who she was as a superlative painter. She rarely revealed

her precious jewel-like paintings that were far more illuminated

contextually than her ancestry.

She compartmentalized her life. She was deathly afraid to remove

her complex multiple masks and reveal not only her precious art, but

also her deepest intimate feelings to others. She was validated only

by those relationships that had a higher profile than she, so

that she could retreat behind her provocatively mysterious and

seductive persona to hide her acute vulnerability.

She was difficult to get to know, guarded, and very secretive. Sherevealed certain things to socially survive, while withholding her

poetically rich emotional and spiritual communications to focus

through her dedicated relationship with her sacred and sovereign art.

She had a genius gift of observation and execution in cryptic detail,

both in her character and painting. Bridget painted for herself, and

not for commercial gain or notoriety.

Bridgets life and art lifted Mexican art up to new high point. Shewas a European royal that was a part of an international society,

who rejected her privileged upbringing and background for self-

realization and expression as a female artist in rural Michoacan.

Bridget reflected the inherent value of Mexico as a mystical ancient

cultural magnet filled with authentic artistic and spiritual mosaics of

chiascurro passions.

Bridget spiritually adopted me and I became her protg in 1971.

Among her many gifts, she benevolently trained me in drawing andpainting, introducing me to ancient occult religions, which included

many lost esoteric sciences and eschatology of Egyptian, Hindu

Tantrika, and Mesoamerican Magic and Alchemy.

She fed my hunger to learn, and I became her consummate student

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in a world that had received a death rattle to classically trained

artists.

The trajectory in this biography is about the journey of

metamorphous we shared together as friends, what Bridgetconsidered important and unimportant, how we impacted each

others lives, and what each of us gained from our rapport. Bridgets

character is discovered through my eyes and what she taught me,

because I had to be taught. The story follows the changing arcs in

our characters through the alchemy of our bond. It is a beautiful

recovery love story between two people who were destined to have

a sacred relationship.

Bridgets life stories were one of her great legacies that she imparted

to me during the 19 years of our relationship. Over 20 years ago, I

began to research and document a small portion of these elaborate,

and many times confusing, historical events and their interplay as

she told them.

In most cases, she would use a particular aspect of her life, a family

member, friend, or someone she admired in story telling as anexample to teach me something she felt I needed to learn. Bridgets

long and entertaining monologues focused on definitive standards

and values she felt imperative I absorb.

To some that knew her superficially or were envious, she appeared

to exaggerate or embellish only to discover that what she said was

true, to others that were awe-stricken by her and did not know the

obscure details of her secreted life, she was labeled an aristocratic

artist, and to those few that knew her well, she was a loyal friend,wise teacher, and genius painter.

Just before her death, I promised Bridget that she would be known

to the world. -Zachary Selig

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CHAPTER XII ASCENSION

Between 1982 and 1984, Tichenor lived in Rome and painted a

series of paintings titledMasks, Spiritual Guides, and Dual Deities.

Her final years were spent painting at her home in San Miguel de

Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico.

After a series of life-shattering events that began with her former

lover Patrick Trittons ill negotiated sale of her beloved painting by

Di Chirico in 1976, her move from Contembo to Mexico City in1978, her sons death and the events that surrounded it in 1982,

and culminating in the sudden and untimely death of her Italian

fianc and the proceedings of his family to exclude her from the

estate in Rome 1984 Tichenor became emotionally exhausted and

began to physically deteriorate.

Although apathetic about her fated return to Mexico City to live in

the home of Baron Alexander von Wuthenau, which was assisted by

her friends Milou de Montferrier and Countess Bachu Worontzow

financing, she continued to paint. She moved from Mexico City to

live her last years with her English Bulldog Bi Bi in a home built

to her specifications in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico

by her close friend the late Swedish shipping tycoon Eric Noren.

Eric had supported her financially for many years, and was always

there for her, no matter what. Eric owned the land on a golf resort,

where he built Bridgets new home. The location was not to herliking, nor the construction or gardens, but she did her best to

compromise, sighing with resignation given her situation. Her close

friends there were English film director Peter Glenville, Milou de

Montferrier, Carmen Friedeberg, and Jon Lightfoot.

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Tichenor was the subject of a 1985 documentary titled Rara Avis, so

named by Pedro Friedeberg, shot in her friend anthropology

historian Baron Alexander von Wuthenaus home in Mexico City. It

was directed by Tufic Maklouf and focused on Tichenors life in

Europe, her being a subject for the photographers Man Ray, CecilBeaton, Irving Penn, John Rawlings, George Platt Lynes, Joffe,

Horst, her career as a Vogue Fashion Editor in New York with

Cond Nast Art Director Alexander Lieberman between 1948 and

1952, and her Magic Realism painting career in Mexico that began

in 1953. The title of the film, Rara Avis, is Latin meaning a rare and

unique thing or person.

She complained bitterly that San Miguel de Allende was too coldor too hot, too dry or to wet, too windy or too still, and too full of

loud wealthy Texans with the wrong values or too void of

interesting people with the right values. American Artist Jon

Lightfoot had been introduced to her through myself in 1980 in

Mexico City, and at the end of her life he became one of her

dearest friends in San Miguel de Allende.

Jon was a highly disciplined and well-established fine artist that

had been a student with Joffrey Ballet, a modern dancer with the

Martha Graham Company in New York, a Wilhelmina

print/commercial model in Europe along with his friend Bruce

Weber, and an actor in Hollywood before he began his professional

career as a painter. He was Bridgets most valued artistic

relationship in San Miguel with shared commonalities, which

stimulated and inspired her to continue painting in the face of her

terminal illness. He forced her to eat when she would not, and gave

her the enthusiasm to paint as long as she could.

Her close friends were the only human family she ever had. Those

that were dearest to her heart and soul generously blessed her with

great love, compassion, reverence, and admiration throughout her

life.

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Bridget and Jeremy healed their estranged and damaged mother-son

relationship to a degree with its complicated history, becoming

friends, versus intimate family members. Bridget adored Jeremy andregretted abandoning him and her inability to parent him. She held

that heavy sadness throughout her life, and yearned for family

connection towards the end of her life.

Jeremy was awe-struck by his mothers persona and eccentric

bohemian celebrity. When I saw Bridget and Jeremy together he

appeared hurtfully withdrawn in her presence, reserved in a silence

that I perceived masked unspoken resentment towards her for hermaternal absence. He did not provide financially for her after his

death, which was not of his creation, but due to his Grandfathers

Trust structure.

When Jeremy died at age 42 in 1982, his family members ceased

any communication with her, which burst her already broken heart.

She said, The family refused to speak with me after he died in

Boston. Then in New York, I was confronted with the family

lawyers on the steps of the church at Jeremys funeral to block mefrom any claim to his Trust, which was the final dagger.

Tichenor never had a true blood-related family that was bonded, but

did have the most amazing sincere family of loyal friends that

respected, admired, and loved her dearly.

There were some years during the late 1980s that I would be in

Mexico City or Carreyes working with clients. When I called herfrom Mexico she would appear jealous, when she truly wanted to

see me and was angry, because I was not with her. She would say,

Why are you with so and so, how boring, how shallow of you,

darling must you be so superficial, and who are THEY anyway?

Sometimes, her sarcasm was so horrific of others that I was involved

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with that she verabally tore the flesh to the bone of anyone that I

became close to in fits of jealousy.

She did the same with her close friends such as Milou, who like

myself, was brought to tears many times by her acerbic tongue.

She was irreverent to her own class that considered themselves

superior, authoritative figures that classified or dominated, and those

that prioritized finance as being the finite measure of human

success. She abhorred anything inhuman or unkind, yet could be

both with her piercing wit.

As with many people, there were contradictions in her characterrevealed only with a few friends. She would deliver elaborate sets of

values in comparative analysis that involved discernment with

lessons to be learned in every story she told, which was one of her

intimate ways of expressing her love to me.

In one of her letters from 1987 she said regarding my portrait

painting, Brilliant you are painting these peoples portraits, but

must you make the photo you sent of Mum and Child painting so

Aryan? Darling, they are way too Nazi, but then again perhaps theyare, no? Germans living in Gstaad with heaps of Swiss Francs

Dios mio Nazi bank accounts for the privileged few in the

distillery business, who once were my German relatives servants, no

doubt!

You can make a tidy fortune with your portraiture career with all

those super rich, who crave their graven images for posterity God

only knows why - paint them as YOU see them and nothing else,take FOREVER to finish, and charge a bloody FORTUNE the

clients love the attention and the higher the price the better

besides, its enormous discipline and good for you!

So few people are doing portraits these days. BUT, dont forget to

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do them with the BEST you can do, as fashion changes all too

rapidly. DO everyone who approaches you And, NEVER use Copal

Medium or any of the Cobalt Blues only Prussian Blues or

Manganese Blues and, do not forget the WHITES, never Zinc and

only Titanium they crack otherwise and all the work is a disaster!

Then later, you will be free to paint, as you like. I cant paint anyone

I am not in love with, and if I do, they are much to true or prophetic.

I used to paint my favorite companions, the two-legged winged ones

and four- legged ones, dear souls, and then they immediately died.

So, ISLAM has its points.

When I was living in Paris in 1990, I made a trip to give spiritualconsultations to Italian Princess Beatrice di Savoia in Cuernavaca. I

called Bridget when I arrived, as I always did, and she informed me

that she had bone cancer and was undergoing treatment in San

Miguel and Mexico City. She went into her normal rage on the

phone, demanding the reasons for me being in Cuernavaca and not

with her in San Miguel. She would try the little girl poor me act to

get me to change my plans, and when that did not work, she would

start dissecting whomever I was with into pieces.

I explained that I was helping Beatrice, which she said was a futile

case to denigrate me. Darling, you are as mad as she I knew the

family well, lived with them in Italy before the War - you are

wasting your God given gift as a Spiritist help the poor and

needy that are connected spiritually - not the spoiled rich that

worship the Golden Calf in a 17th century paralyzed genetic

dysfunction - they contribute nothing and isolate in walled

compounds with the worst God-awful taste I have ever seen!

I was deeply concerned and upset with her comments, yet had

learned to distance myself with a protective wall from her expected

verbal assaults and not take it personally. I hoped for the best and

prayed for her, but did not realize how seriously ill she was.

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I had a defiant boundary in place for over a decade to protect myself

from Nanny Bridget and her acid-tongue, which was about to

crumble into my first and greatest acceptance and compassion for an

alcoholic loved one.

There were other friends that followed Bridget, where I learned to

love unconditionally those with drinking and drug diseases. I had

been in denial that I came from an alcoholic family myself, until my

eyes were opened at the end of Bridgets life. The beginning of my

own self-awareness regarding the effects of my alcoholic parents

was triggered at the time of Bridgets death.

A few weeks later, after I returned to Paris from Mexico, I receiveda call from Pedro Friedeberg. Pedro informed me that Bridget was

dieing and that she asked that I come to Mexico to see her as quickly

as possible. He said, She is seeing only THOSE she loves, which is

excluding Leonora, Maria, and MANY others.

Why was I selected as one of the chosen few was I really the

spiritually adopted son she declared I was after years of constant

brow-beating and criticism that I had distanced myself from? Now,

she wanted me with her when she was dieing what to do toprepare myself was I too walk on the same 19 year old path of

egg-shells at this critical moment how to be with dear Bridget?

I called her immediately and she said, Please bring me Hershey

Kisses from Duty- Free and none of that Swiss or French stuff

good old Hersheys. I was on the next plane to Mexico City in a state

of shock.

I arrived in Mexico City from the 11-hour trip, and took a taxi to my

hostesss home and then straight to the hospital. I arrived at the

entrance to her room where Countess Bachu Worantzow and her

lover Jackie Rae were sitting. We spoke and they somberly went

into detail regarding Bridgets operations and treatments with the

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doctors prognosis that she could die at any moment, or could last a

while longer. I was aghast, having never experienced the thought of

loosing Bridget or anyone I loved.

Pedro Friedeberg opened the door to Bridgets room and asked that Icome in to see her alone. I entered the room where Bridget was

sitting upright in a hospital bed with a doctor, nurse, and her dear

friend Marina Lascaris sitting in a chair beside her doing petite-

pointes. Her hair had become snow white and she wore no makeup.

Shockingly, she looked younger with the innocence of a child. Her

glamorous masks were gone and she sat still. I instantly recognized

her complete surrender and acceptance to death, something that she

talked about often years earlier.

Bridget said with her still whisky patrician voice, Darling

Zackapoo, Lambbbbkins, you are here, at last! What took you so

long and what on earth has happened? - youre face has become so

round, but your eyes are as blue as ever! What are you eating and

why are you so muscular? Aren t you looking smart tres chic et

beau! Where are you staying and who are you with? Why are you

with so and so simply ridiculous stay in a hotel Gods sake, not

with THOSE people.

She then introduced me to everyone in the room and directed the

nurse and doctor to find a chair for me, as though they were her

maid and butler for a cocktail party to begin. The nurse and doctor

then left the room.

We began to talk with her focusing on me and wanting to hear my

news and asking to see photographs of my recent work. She lovedmy Swirl Vortex paintings and she called them lyrical notes of

light. Carlos de Laborde entered the room to check on her and

quickly left, while Marina sat quietly doing her petite-pointes.

During that first visit, she asked that I place one Hershey Kiss at a

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time in her mouth. Her eyes opened with delight, and said, These

are soooo divine, reminds me of the War years in America, one

more please. I gave her a few more, which was a lovely exchange

between us, where we expressed how much we loved one another.

She quickly said, No more my pet, not now. Then, in the nextmoment she shifted from our shared intimacy to saying in a more

Bridget the nanny character, Now be a good boy and sit over

there.

Bridget then pushed the button for the nurse, who immediately

appeared. Bridget asked that she call for the doctor. The doctor

arrived, and the room became full of Bridgets directives to close the

curtains, turn a lamp on with a scarf over the shade, move theflowers, move a table, bring more chairs, and check her life support

apparatus. She resumed her normal character of barking orders,

insisting the rooms dcor and ambiance be re-arranged with a burst

of controlling activity that distracted from our intimacy.

That was Bridgets way of distancing herself from her vulnerability

when she was in an intimate situation. I said, I know you want to

see Bachu and Jackie, and I will come back tomorrow. I left the

room to join Bachu and Jackie with uncontrollable emotion. Myconscious love surged out of me with an eruptive grief behind it that

took many years to subside, yet never ended.

At the time of Tichenors death in the Hospital Londres and finally

at the de Laborde-Noguez Yturbe residence in Mexico City in 1990,

she chose to be exclusively with her intimate friends Pedro

Friedeberg, Eric Noren, Cristina Bremer Faesler, Jon Lightfoot,

Countess Bachu Worontzow, Alan Glass, the De Laborde -NoguezYturbe family and myself. Even her other friends such as Leonora

Carrington and Maria Felix were not permitted to visit her. There

had been rifts in the Carrington relationship.

After her son Jeremy Chisholms death in 1982, she had no contact

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with or from his estranged family. There were no family members

with her at the time of her death, nor were there family relations

included in the last will and testament of her estate.

It is interesting to note that Tichenors mother Vera Bate Lombardiwas a close friend of Comte Leon de Laborde, who was the most

fervent admirer of CoCo Chanel in her youth. At the end of

Bridgets life, his descendents and their wives Carlos de Laborde-

Noguez Yturbe and his wife Marina Lascaris, Daniel de Laborde-

Noguez Yturbe and his wife Marie Aime de Motalembert became

Tichenors most respected allies, trusted friends, and caretakers at

the end of her life in their home in Mexico City, Mexico. Carloss

and Daniels father Jean de Laborde had been a close friend ofBridgets since her arrival in Mexico 1953.

The celebrated sculptor and artist Marina Lascaris, former wife of

economist and art collector Carlos de Laborde-Noguez Yturbe was

the lovingly devoted individual, who stood a constant vigil at

Bridgets bedside from the onset of her illness until just before her

last breath. Marina was the embodiment of quiet dignity, which is

the noble characteristic that the British have always admired most.

As death approached Bridget in the hospital in Mexico City during

my final visit, I saw and heard the visions and voices of her past

returning to her in sequential apparitions guided by her ancestral

spirits. We sat alone, speechless, and staring at one another for a

long time. I witnessed her spirit guides effortlessly remove each one

of her identity-masks to reveal long-held truths of her souls identity

and purpose.

Her acute awareness of her defects of character in those moments

enabled her to release the binding malignant chains of sadness,

anger, resentment, and fear that handicapped her self-love and the

love she had for others. A marvelous transition had occurred with

her and between us, where I experienced an immortal love from

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Bridget that I knew would be forever. I promised her in those

moments that what she had not done in regard to her own self-worth

in her life, I would do for her so that she would be known to the

world

Her psyche had surrendered to her anima. The struggle and the pain

were over with her ego that she considered a choking ivy and her

worst enemy. Bridget was like a serene ancient Egyptian Isis with

alabaster skin and white hair in an ascension modality letting go.

She was smiling and in perfect balance as her spirit guides prepared

to transport her soul to the magical worlds she painted and beyond.

A few weeks later, Bridget peaceful passed away in the home ofDaniel de Laborde-Noguez Yturbe in the arms of his wife Marie

Aime de Motalembert.

I had the realization when Bridget died that every choice she made

in her life, as with any great work of art, was a self-portrait of

courage and conviction. So many of the life lessons that she had

learned and taught me were mirrored in my own life and prepared

me for my own challenges.

After her death, she became my principal spirit guide, continuing to

show me my path to authentic self-fulfillment. In spirit form, just as

in life, she has illuminated her sharp discernment in values to me of

what is important and what is not.

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the first biography of the life of bridget bate tichenor, chapter xii: ascension

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