Series consists of several groupings of correspondence received and sent by Carl Schaefer.
Included are three main groups of alphabetically arranged correspondence. The first group is largely from other artists including Caven Atkins, Walter Baetz, Sam Borenstein, Paraskeva Clark, Charles Comfort, Orville Fisher, Charles Goldhamer, Emanuel Hahn, Lawren P. Harris, Jock Macdonald, Henri Masson, Isabel McLaughlin, George Pepper, Lowrie Warrener, and others. This group also includes extensive correspondence from poet and scholar George Johnston and from professor of economics Clyde Dankert, as well as letters from Schaefer's wife, Lillian, during the Second World War (vols.1-5).
The second group of alphabetically arranged correspondence also includes artists, and among its correspondents are Caven Atkins, Robert Ayre, Thomas Hart Benton, Miller Brittain, Charles Burchfield, Emily Carr, Charles Comfort, William Cook, D.M. Dodge, Barker Fairley, Jim Forsythe, Naomi Jackson Groves, Lawren and Bess Harris, Frances Holgate, A.Y. Jackson, Arthur Lismer, John Martin, David Milne, Louis Muhlstock, Paul Sample, and G.B.C. Van der Feen, as well as the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Schaefer family (vol. 8).
The third alphabetical group includes correspondence from personal friends filed by Schaefer in envelopes or file folders by correspondent's name. The correspondents include David Blackwood 1965-1985; Charles and Louise Comfort 1983-1988; Clyde and Betty Dankert 1958-1968, 1982; Doreen and Robert Davis 1955-1984; Linda Johns 1978-1986; Robert Pepall 1977-1989; William Roberts 1962-1988; and Schaefer's son Mark, consisting of letters from Carl Schaefer (vols. 19-20, 40).
The series also includes correspondence and memoranda relating to the Arts and Letters Club, Toronto; Schaefer's service as war artist with the Royal Canadian Air Force; his retrospective exhibitions; the Parkwood Collection; and the exhibition entitled Canadian Artists of the Second World War (vol. 6).
Additional correspondence, arranged chronologically, includes Hope and Ray Nash, George Pepper, Leonard Brooks, Henry Moore, Charles Comfort, Jack Firestone, Peter Savage, Jennifer Oille, Betty Dankert, George Johnston and Henri Masson, as well as correspondence with students and collectors, correspondence about catalogues, exhibitions and photographs, and letters of introduction (vols. 11-12).
Further additional correspondence, transferred in 1996, was filed by Schaefer by decade in envelopes and file folders (with some loose correspondence found among the records added to these files). Among the correspondents are Will Ogilvie, Louis Muhlstock, Kay and George Pepper, H.O. and Dorothy McCurry - see undated files; Marius Barbeau, Charles Goldhamer, the Print Collectors Society (Montreal), John Alford, Walter Abell, Canadian Society of Graphic Art, Elizabeth Nutt, Peter Haworth, Picture Loan Society, Lowrie Warrener, J.S. McLean, Louis Muhlstock, Vincent Massey, National Gallery, Art Gallery of Toronto, Hart House, Trinity College School - see 1930s files; Charles Comfort, Orville Fisher, Ethel Crouch Brown, Canadian Group of Painters -1940s; René Rivard - 1970s; George Johnston -1980s; William Roberts, George Johnston, Arch Jones and Peter Savage -1990s (vol. 20).
The series also includes some photocopies of correspondence Schaefer had copied from files in various institutions and other sources. These include letters from Jim Forsyth, Lawren S. Harris, and David Milne and two letters by Schaefer concerning Moon Over the Don Jail, copied in 1975 from the original held by the National Gallery of Canada, as well as a letter from Emily Carr (vol. 7).