Bridget Bate Tichenor

Bridget Bate Tichenor
Portrait of Bridget Bate Tichenor by George Platt Lynes, New York 1945.
Born	Bridget Pamela Arkwright Bate ( 1917-11-22)November 22, 1917 Paris, France
Died	October 20, 1990(1990-10-20) (aged 72) Mexico City, Mexico
Nationality	Mexican (Mexico)
Education	Slade School of Fine Art, 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 on November 22, 1917 – died on October 20, 1990), also known as Bridget Tichenor or B.B.T., was a Mexican surrealist painter of fantastic art in the school of magic realism and a fashion editor. Born in Paris and of British descent, she later embraced Mexico as her home.

Bate was the daughter of Frederick Blantford Bate (c1886-1970) 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. She lived between Rome and Paris from 1930 until 1938.

Fred Bate carefully guided his daughter with her art. He recommended she attend the Slade School in London, and visited her later at the Contembo Ranch in Mexico. Fred Bate's close friend, surrealist photographer Man Ray, photographed her at different stages of her modeling career from Paris to New York.

Vera Bate Lombardi is said to have been the public relations liaison to the royal families of Europe for Coco Chanel between 1925 and 1938. Her grandmother, Rosa Frederica Baring (1854-1927) was a member of the Baring banking family, being a great granddaughter of Sir Francis Baring (1740-1810), the founder of Barings Bank, and Bridget Bate was therefore related to many British and European aristocratic families.

Bate married Hugh Joseph Chisholm at the Chisholm family home, Strathgrass in Port Chester, New York on October 14, 1939. 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. They had a son in Beverly Hills, California on December 21, 1940 named Jeremy Chisholm. H. Jeremy Chisholm was a noted businessman and equestrian in the USA, 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.