Hofer, Philip, 1898-1984

Philip Hofer (1898-1984) was a librarian, book collector, and founder and first curator of the Department of Printing and Graphic Arts at Houghton Library at Harvard University. Hofer graduated from Harvard College and spent a few years in business. He began collecting a wide variety of printed books in 1917. By 1933 he focused on illustrated and decorated books, thus entering into a serious study of book arts. He served as curator of the Spencer Collection of the New York Public Library, and in 1934 he became the first assistant director of the Morgan Library in New York, where he worked until 1937. In 1938, the newly appointed librarian of Harvard University's library, William Jackson, asked Hofer to head the Department of Printing and Graphic Arts, the first such department in the country. Hofer spent the next forty years building the collection, which became part of the founding collection of Houghton Library, Harvard College's special collections repository. Hofer was secretary of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard as well. In 1980 he retired emeritus. He was a trustee for the American School of Classical Studies in Athens.