Toto Koopman

Toto Koopman (actually Catharina Koopman , also Katharina Koopman ; * October 1908 in Salatiga on Java , Dutch East Indies , † 1991 in London ) was one of the most famous photo models of the 1930s, a muse in the liberal art scene in France and England, a spy for the Italian resistance against fascism and national socialism , as well as a gallery owner .

Life

Catharina Koopman was born on the island of Java in 1908 to a Dutch cavalry officer and his half Indonesian, half Dutch wife. Because of the " mixed marriage", the parents' wedding was a scandal in the Dutch colonial world, and the family got into trouble. Catharina grew up between tea plantations and elephants. Her nickname Toto , which she kept for life, was derived from the name of her father's favorite horse.

Career

In 1928 she moved to Paris. In the 1930s Toto worked for a short time for the fashion designer Coco Chanel , then for Mainbocher and Madeline Vionnet. She was the first non-white model on the cover of Vogue : The series of photos in the September 1933 issue of Vogue (photographed by George Hoyningen-Huene with couture by Augusta Bernard) was a style-defining feature for Toto Koopman because of its simplicity and strong erotic presence the fashion photography of the time.

Koopman met the London newspaper magnate Lord Beaverbrook in England and was introduced to his circle. There she was asked to gather information on her many trips through Europe in the high society of Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy. She became a spy for the Italian resistance movement in 1939 when she entered into a love affair with a resistance fighter. The fact that she spoke six languages ​​fluently and had no family ties played a role in this. She was arrested twice by the Italian fascists in 1941 and was able to escape. In October 1944 it fell into the hands of the Gestapo and was deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp . Among other things, medical "experiments" were carried out there on her. She herself pretended - in fluent German - to be a nurse trained at London's St. Mary's Hospital and was given little jobs in the treatment wing. After the liberation of the concentration camp by the Allies in April 1945, the seriously ill woman was picked up by a former lover, Randolph Churchill (son of Prime Minister Winston Churchill ). From then on, her center of life was London.

In 1945 she met the German art collector Erica Brausen , with whom she fell in love years later. When Brausen opened the Hanover Gallery in London's West End in 1947 , which became a center for the art scene, Toto Koopman was the woman at Brausen’s side who cultivated social contacts and made the gallery known in her circles.

She later intensified her interest in archeology. Catharina Toto Koopman lived with showers until her death in 1991, most recently on a luxury area built by both women on the southern Italian island of Panarea .

literature

• Jean-Noël Liaut: The Many Lives of Miss K: Toto Koopman - Model, Muse , Rizzoli Ex Libris, New York 2013, ISBN 978-0-8478-4129-5 (translated from French into English)

Web links

• Toto Koopman in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ see Stephen Heyman: Toto Koopman, Model Spy , New York Times of August 13, 2013 and Nisha Lilia Diu: Toto Koopman: model, muse, mistress - and spy. The Daily Telegraph , September 1, 2013, accessed October 29, 2014 (biography review).