The Klingspor Museum for international book and type art in Offenbach emerged from the private collection of Karl Klingspor (1868 – 1950). Karl Klingspor, who with his brother owned and operated a type foundry of the same name in the first half of the 20th century, worked together with many internationally renowned artists.
Typographers, graphic artists and architects such as Otto Eckmann, Peter Behrens, Rudolf Koch, Walter Tiemann, Rudo Spemann, Imre Reiner, Hans Bohn and Karlgeorg Hoefer designed typefaces for this company. Klingspor’s private book collection was already exhibited at the International Leipzig Book Fair of 1927. Shortly after its foundation in 1953, the Museum was additionally bequeathed the estates of the typeface designers Rudolf Koch and Rudo Spemann. Important collections like those of Rudolf von Larisch and Nikolaas Werkmann were further acquisitions. Today, the collection field of the Museum covers illustrated books, press prints, painters’ manuals, artists’ books, typeface sample manuals, typeface specimens, handwritings and calligraphic sheets.
In regularly changing exhibitions the Museum presents exhibits from its own collections and international works loaned by artists and collectors.