The collection of Jacqueline Nonkels (1916-2007), a friend of René and Georgette Magritte but also of Marcel Mariën, comprises sketches, letters, collages and photographs of Belgian surrealist artists. The collection provides us with a different view of their universe.
Day-to-day lives
Jacqueline Nonkels was René and Georgette Magritte’s neighbour and it did not take long for her to become friends with Georgette. Jacqueline thus received various documents from the couple as well as photographs that immortalized the Magrittes in their day-to-day lives. It was through René and Georgette that Jacqueline Nonkels met Marcel Mariën. Between December 1937 and August 1938, Jacqueline and Marcel exchanged a series of passionate and surrealist letters. The letters were accompanied by the artist’s first collages and contained the germs of various elements and themes that would later find their way into his work.
To be kept together
Jacqueline Nonkels fervently wanted these documents, linked to the artistic preoccupations of their now internationally recognized creators, to be kept together. Her wish was to have us enter the private lives of the Brussels surrealists and familiarize ourselves with their process of creation, a process that she had witnessed from close up. This is why she created, through a bequest to the King Baudouin Foundation, the Jacqueline Nonkels-Delcourt Fund, to which she gave her collection.
