The Friendship between Franz Mon and Carlfriedrich Claus

In 1959, the artist Carlfriedrich Claus (1930–1998) and the writer Franz Mon (born 1926) began an intensive correspondence that was to last for nearly forty years. The 320 letters published here are flanked by samples of their work, photographs, excerpts from books and commentaries explaining the larger context. Considerable space is accorded to the artists’ reflections on each other’s work and subtle interpretations of it.
This extraordinary exchange of letters sheds a very personal and at the same time fascinating light both on the various currents that the friends themselves witnessed and on each artist’s own oeuvre.