Toto Koopman
| Toto Koopman | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Catharina Koopman October 1908 Java, Indonesia |
| Died | August 1991 (aged 82) London, England |
| Nationality | Indonesian |
| Occupation | Model |
| Partner(s) | Erica Brausen (1945–1991) |
Catharina "Toto" Koopman (October 1908 – August 1991) was an Indonesian model who worked in Paris prior to World War II. During that war she served as a spy for the Italian Resistance, was captured and held prisoner in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. She later helped establish the Hanover Gallery as one of the most influential art galleries in Europe in the 1950s.
Born in Java in 1908, Koopman was the daughter of a Dutch cavalry officer and a Dutch-Indonesian mother. She was named Catharina, but came to prefer Toto, her childhood nickname after her father's favourite horse. Koopman left Java in 1920 to attend a boarding school in the Netherlands where she developed a talent for languages and became fluent in English, French, German and Italian. After a year at an English finishing school, she moved to Paris to work as a model.
In Paris, Koopman worked as a house model for Coco Chanel but quit after only six months. She worked for the designers Rochas, Mainbocher and Madeleine Vionnet, appeared regularly in Vogue Paris and was photographed by Edward Steichen and George Hoyningen-Huene.
Koopman had a small part in the film The Private Life of Don Juan and although this was cut from the final production she still attended the film's premiere with Tallulah Bankhead, who introduced her to Lord Beaverbrook. Although Beaverbrook was married and thirty years her senior, he and Koopman began, in 1934, an affair that lasted some years. He was happy to pay for her travels throughout Europe in the 1930s and she often attended opera performances in Germany and Italy. When Beaverbrook discovered that Koopman was also in a relationship with his son, Max Aitken, he ran a series of stories in the newspapers he owned, including the Daily Express and the London Evening Standard, that made Koopman an outcast in London high-society. Koopman and the younger Aitkin lived together for four years but he ended the relationship when she refused to marry him. In fact Koopman had signed an agreement with Beaverbrook which granted her a pension for life from him provided she did not marry his son.
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