Bridget Bate Tichenor
Bridget Bate Tichenor | |
---|---|
École des Beaux Arts, Art Students League of New York | |
Known for | Painting, Fashion editor |
Notable work | Domadora de quimeras, Caja de crystal, Los encarcelados, Líderes |
Movement | Surrealism, magic realism |
Bridget Bate Tichenor (born Bridget Pamela Arkwright Bate) (November 22, 1917 – October 12, 1990)[1] was a British surrealist painter of fantastic art in the school of magic realism and a fashion editor. Born in Paris, she later embraced Mexico as her home.[2]
Family and early life in Europe
Bate was the daughter of Frederick Blantford Bate (c. 1886–1970) and Vera Nina Arkwright (1883–1948), who was also known as Vera Bate Lombardi. Although born in France, she spent her youth in England and attended schools in England, France, and Italy. She moved to Paris at age 16, to live with her mother, where she worked as a model for Coco Chanel.[3] She lived between Rome and Paris from 1930 until 1938.
Fred Bate carefully guided his daughter with her art. He recommended she attend the
Vera Bate Lombardi is said to have been the
New York and the United States
Bate married Hugh Joseph Chisholm at the Chisholm family home, Strathgrass in Port Chester, New York on October 14, 1939.[6] It was an arranged marriage, devised by her mother Vera through Cole Porter and his wife Linda's introduction, in order to remove Bate from Europe and the looming threat of the World War II.[7] They had a son in Beverly Hills, California on December 21, 1940 named Jeremy Chisholm.[8] H. Jeremy Chisholm was a noted businessman and equestrian in the US, United Kingdom and Europe, who was married to Jeanne Vallely-Lang Suydam and father to James Lang-Suydam Chisholm when he died in Boston in 1982.[9]
In 1943, Bate was a student at the
Painting technique
Bate Tichenor's painting technique was based upon 16th-century Italian tempera formulas that artist Paul Cadmus taught her in New York in 1945, where she would prepare an eggshell-finished gesso ground on masonite board and apply (instead of tempera) multiple transparent oil glazes defined through chiaroscuro with sometimes one hair of a #00 sable brush.[14] Bate Tichenor considered her work to be of a spiritual nature, reflecting ancient occult religions, magic, alchemy, and Mesoamerican mythology in her Italian Renaissance style of painting.[17]
Life in Mexico
The cultures of
Having lived in varied European and American cultures with multiple identities reflecting her life passages, Bate Tichenor recognized the
At the time of Bate Tichenor's move to Mexico in 1953, she began what would become a lifetime journey through her art and mysticism, inspired by her belief in ancestral spirits, to achieve self-realization.[14] While painting alone and in isolation, she removed her familiar and societal masks to find her own personal human and spiritual identities; she would then reposition those hidden identities with new masks and characters in her paintings that represented her own sacred beliefs and truths.[14] This guarded internal process of self-discovery and fulfillment was allegorically portrayed with a cast of mythological characters engaged in magical settings. She painted a dramatization of her own life and quests on canvas through an expressive visual language and an artistic vocabulary that she kept secret.[14]
In 1958, she participated in the First Salon of Women's Art at the Galerías Excelsior of Mexico, together with Carrington, Rahon, Varo, and other
Bate Tichenor counted painters Carrington, Alan Glass, Zachary Selig and artist Pedro Friedeberg among her closest friends and artistic contemporaries in Mexico.[21]
Between 1982 and 1984, Bate Tichenor lived in Rome and painted a series of paintings titled Masks, Spiritual Guides, and Dual Deities.[14] Her final years were spent at her home in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico.[14]
Contembo Ranch
The architecture of Bate Tichenor's house at Contembo Ranch in Michoacán was a simple
Many of the faces and bodies of her magical creatures in her paintings were based upon her assorted terriers, chihuahuas, and Italian mastiffs, sheep, goats, monkeys, parrots, iguanas, snakes, horses, cows, and local Purépecha servants and friends.[14]
The light, colors and landscapes of Bate Tichenor's paintings were inspired by the topography of the volcanic land that surrounded her mountaintop home. There was a
Death and legacy
At the time of Bate Tichenor's death in the Daniel de Laborde-Noguez and Marie Aimée de Montalembert house on the Calle Tabasco in Mexico City in 1990, she chose to be exclusively with her close friends. Bate Tichenor's mother Vera Bate Lombardi was a close friend of Comte Léon de Laborde, who was a fervent admirer of Coco Chanel in her youth and had introduced Lombardi to Chanel. Comte Léon de Laborde's grandson, economist Carlos de Laborde-Noguez, his wife Marina Lascaris, his brother Daniel de Laborde-Noguez and his wife, Marie Aimée de Motalembert became Bate Tichenor's most respected allies, trusted friends, and caretakers at the end of her life in their home in Mexico City.[3]
Bate Tichenor was the subject of a 1985 documentary titled Rara Avis, shot in Baron Alexander von Wuthenau's home in Mexico City.
Artist Pedro Friedeberg wrote about Bate Tichenor and their life in Mexico in his 2011 book of memoirs De Vacaciones Por La Vida (Holiday For Life), including stories of her interaction with his friends and contemporaries Salvador Dalí, Leonora Carrington, Kati Horna, Tamara de Lempicka, Zachary Selig, and Edward James.[21]
Works of art
Interest in Bate Tichenor's paintings by art collectors and museums has been increasing in recent years, as well as collections of art photographs with her as the subject. Her paintings were first sold in 1954 by the Ines Amor Gallery in Mexico City, and then later by her patron, the late Mexican art dealer and collector Antonio de Souza at the Galeria Souza in the Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City. In 1955, the Karning Gallery, directed by
Two 1941
In 2008, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey held an exhibition of Bate Tichenor's work, including her paintings among 50 prominent Mexican artists such as Frida Kahlo. It was titled History of Women: Twentieth-Century Artists in Mexico. The exhibition centered on women who had developed their artistic activities within individual and diverse disciplines while working in Mexico.[31]
Bate Tichenor was featured in the 2012 exhibition In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States, organized by
The
References
- ^ Bridget Bate Tichenor (in French). Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved December 28, 2022 – via catalogue.bnf.fr.
- ^ a b Orenstein Ph.D., Gloria. "The Surrealist Cosmovision of Bridget Tichenor", FEMSPEC - an Interdisciplinary Feminist Journal, Issue 1.1, June 1999.
- ^ ISBN 0-394-47613-1, pp. 249, 250, 256, 323, 331–43, 355, 359.
- ^ a b Christie's Photography Auction, London, May 1, 1996, Lot 213/Sale 558 Man Ray - Bridget Bate, 1941
- ^ a b Sotheby's New York, Auction catalogue: Photographs, Friday April 18, 1997, lot #249, Man Ray – Bridget Bate 1941.
- ^ "MISS BRIDGET BATE SETS WEDDING DAY". New York Times. October 10, 1939.
- ^ a b c d Rara Avis - IMDb
- ^ "Hugh Chisholms Jr. Have Son". New York Times. December 23, 1940.
- ^ Chisholm Gallery Fine Sporting Art
- ^ a b Spring, Justin. "An interview with George Tooker," American Art v. 16, No. 1 (Spring 2002): pp. 61-81.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-56898-612-8, p.57.
- ^ ISBN 1-59420-049-1, p.307.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-312-27127-5, pp. 152–153.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o "Bridget Bate Tichenor Website". Archived from the original on May 4, 2014. Retrieved November 12, 2018.
- ^ The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume III, 1939-1944
- ^ ISBN 978-0-312-27127-5, pp.201-202.
- ^ A Journey Into Ancient Mystery Schools, by Zachary Selig, 2011, Scrbd.com[permanent dead link]
- ^ Breton, André. "The Second Manifesto of Surrealism", Manifestos of Surrealism, Ann Arbor: U of Michigan Press, 1972, pp. 117, 194.
- ^ "Dream Works: Can a Legendary Surrealist Garden in Mexico Bloom Again?". New York Times Style Magazine. March 30, 2008.
- ^ "www.cornermag.com - the Chronology of Remedios Varo". Archived from the original on May 3, 2008. Retrieved December 3, 2008.
- ^ ISBN 978-607-7663-24-9
- ^ Bridget Tichenor - IMDb
- ^ Tufic Makhlouf - IMDb
- ^ www.answers.com - rara avis
- ^ FOBO: Brewer's: Rara Avis (Latin, a rare bird)
- ^ Morelia Film Festival, Mexico
- ^ The Tarot Reader (Jean Patchett and Bridget Tichenor) - New York 1949 by Irving Penn SAAM
- ^ María Félix: la Doña Auction
- ^ Christie's Latin American Art Auction, New York, July 17-18, 2007, Bridget Tichenor Lot 182/Sale 1931 Domadora de quimeras
- ^ Christie's Latin American Art Auction, New York, July 17-18, 2007, Bridget Tichenor Lot 181/Sale 1931 Caja de crystal
- ^ "History of Women Exposition 2008" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 18, 2011. Retrieved December 3, 2008.
- ^ In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States at LACMA 2012 Archived February 12, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Art review: "In Wonderland: Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists". Los Angeles Times. January 30, 2012.
- ^ "Secretería de Cultura DF: "Bridget Tichenor Presentación al público en general"". Archived from the original on August 18, 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2012.
- ^ "Reviven los sueños de Bridget Bate Tichenor" Archived July 14, 2014, at the Wayback Machine. La Verdad de Temaulipas. April 28, 2012.
External links
- Bridget Bate Tichenor at IMDb
- Bridget Bate Chisholm Tichenor's Artist Page at Chisholm Gallery, LLC
- Morelia Film Festival, Mexico
- artnet: Bridget Tichenor, past auction results for Domadora de quimeras
- artnet: Bridget Tichenor, past auction results for Caja de cristal
- Bridget Bate Tichenor biography
- Marlene Eilers Koenig (April 14, 2010). "Vera Arkwright to Marry Frederick Bate 1916". Royal Musingsof. Archived from the original on June 3, 2018.
She made 'plenty of capital of the royal blood in the veins' of her husband, George, the eldest son of the late Duke of Cambridge and his morganatic wife, Louise Fairbrother.
- The First Biography of the Life of Bridget Bate Tichenor by Zachary Selig[permanent dead link] Scribd.com
- Bridget Bate Tichenor. Retrospective at Museo de la Ciudad de México Video
- Paintings of Bridget Tichenor on surrealism.website