Little is known of his early years, but it is clear that by 1881 he was enrolled at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in Germany under German: Carl Friedrich Deiker.
[1] In 1894, Klingender married Florence (née Hoette) and the couple moved to Kronberg.
Klingender devoted a lot of time building up the Goslar Museum, especially their collection of geology and natural history.
On 18 February 1907 his son Francis Klingender was born, who became later known as a famous Marxist, sociologist, economist and art historian.
The Klingender family's good fortune came to an end at the outbreak of World War I in 1914; as a potential spy, he was interned at Ruhleben, a camp near Berlin.