Philip Hofer (1898–1984) was a book collector, librarian, and founder and first curator of the Department of Printing and Graphic Arts, Houghton Library at Harvard University.
Hofer returned to Harvard in 1938 to assume the new position of curator of printing and graphic arts created for him by library director, Keyes DeWitt Metcalf.
As assessment of his focus on major historical techniques and their modern counterparts by Caroline Duroselle-Melish explored his connection to curator- scholar-art critic, William Ivins, and wood engraver, Rudolph Ruzicka.
The Philip Hofer Prize for Collecting Books or Art, open to Harvard undergraduates and graduate students was established in 1988.
[11] The introduction to the Catalogue of an Exhibition of the Philip Hofer Bequest published in 1988 notes that "the unique character of this collection reflects the man who formed it: wide-ranging, specialized, and complex.