Ricardo Menon was Niki de Saint Phalle’s assistant for ten years. He worked with her in the Tarot Garden, eventually living in the Tower of Babel.

Saint Phalle found Menon to be like a cat, proud, mysterious, and sexy. When he was dying of AIDS in the hospital she promised him she would make a cat sculpture in his honor and place it on his tomb in Cimetière de Montparnasse, Paris. This cat symbolise his presence forever in the Garden.