Hugo Claus was a double talent. He tackled both poetry and painting with the same free-spirited ideas: 'I see myself as a painter and as a writer, the two at the same time', he said of himself. His visual work is initially mainly associated with publications of poetry and prose, later his paintings, watercolours and drawings speak for themselves. They are a reflection of a creative mind. Images attack him and he surrenders to them impulsively and freely in countless forms, never in oil paint and almost always on paper. In 1950 he takes part in a group exhibition of Cobra in Belgium. In that year he also travels to Paris, where he has contact with Appel, Corneille and Constant. He becomes particularly good friends with Corneille. Since the 1970s, theater and film have regularly interrupted his visual work for longer periods of time. The painter and draftsman Hugo Claus never explicitly joined any movement or artist group, but at the same time we see his work closely linked to the modern movements of his time such as expressionism, Cobra and pop art.