Toto koopman biography

Catharina "Toto" Koopman (28 October 1908 – 27 August 1991) was a Dutch-Javanese model who worked in Paris prior to World War II. During that war she served.
Catharina "Toto" Koopman was a Dutch-Javanese model who worked in Paris prior to World War II. During that war she served as a spy for the Italian Resistance and was captured and held prisoner in the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Koopman's rise to prominence as a model was also significant in that she was one of the first famous biracial models at a time when racist views.

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MANY LIVES OF MISS K: Toto Koopman - Model, Muse, Spy

A life of glamour and tragedy set against cultural and political movements of 20th century Europe. 'Toto' Koopman (1908-1991) like her contemporaries Lee Miller and Vita Sackville-West, lived with an independent spirit more typical of the men of her generation. She moved in the worlds of fashion, society, art and politics with an insouciant ease which stirred both admiration and envy. Sphinx-like and tantalising, Toto conducted her life as a game, driven by audacity and style. Her biographer chases his enigmatic subject through the many roles and lives she inhabited, though her beauty, charisma and taste for the extraordinary which made her an exuberant fixture of Paris fashion and café society, her intelligence and steely sense of self which drove her towards bigger things, culminating in espionage during World War Two for which she was imprisoned by the Nazis in Ravensbrück. After the horrors of the camp, she found solace in Erica Brausen, the German art dealer who launched the career of Francis Bacon, and the two women liv

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“One dressed up not to please men, but to astound the other women.” – Toto Koopman

If one were to pause and look at any single inflection point in Toto Koopman’s roller coaster of a life, there would always be one adjective apt to describe her and her actions, and that would be “brazen.” Whether it was in her pursuit of a modeling career despite the objection of her parents, her unabashedly publicized affairs with both sexes, or her dogged and defiant role as a spy and resistance fighter during WWII, Toto lived her life with both audacity and conviction every step of the way.

Catharina Koopman was born October 28th, 1908 in Java, an island in present-day Indonesia that at the time was part of the Dutch-ruled colony called the Dutch East Indies. Her father, Jan George Koopman, was a Dutch cavalry officer, while her mother, Catharina Johanna Westrik, was mixed-race; part Javanese and part Dutch. Though she was named after her mother, Catharina preferred to be called “Toto,” a childhood nickname taken from her father’s favorite horse. Toto had one older brother named Ody, who bec

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Toto Koopman

Catharina Johanna Maria "Toto" Koopman (Salatiga, 28 oktober1908 – Londen, 27 augustus1991) was een model, maîtresse, spionne en galeriehoudster van Nederlands-Javaanse afkomst. Zij leefde in het midden van de twintigste eeuw een bewogen leven.

In 1908 geboren in Java als de dochter van een Nederlands cavalerieofficier en een half Nederlands-half Javaanse moeder, groeide zij op in een milieu van Indische Nederlanders. Haar broer was de tennisser Ody Koopman (1902-1949). In de jaren dertig leefde zij in Parijs, waar zij onder ander werkte voor Coco Chanel. Vanaf 1933 leefde zij in Londen, waar zij onder andere de maîtresse was van Lord Beaverbrook, diens zoon Max Aitken en Randolph Churchill.

In de Tweede Wereldoorlog was zij actief in Italië, waar zij bij het verzet betrokken raakte. Het laatste jaar van de Tweede Wereldoorlog bracht zij door in het vrouwenconcentratiekamp Ravensbrück. Na dit ternauwernood overleefd te hebben werd zij in 1945 door Randolph Churchill teruggehaald naar Londen.

Na 1945 leefde zij de rest van haar leven in een lesbische relatie