The Schmitz-Lippert Foundation: a Center for Comics Enthusiasts in the Heart of Cologne

Since its inception in 2008, the Schmitz-Lippert Foundation has been contributing to the research, preservation and communication of U.S. comics culture. It is based in the Cologne Comic House in Cologne’s Südstadt district, where it offers visitors a wide range of exhibitions and events.

The foundation grew out of the extensive collection of Thomas Schmitz-Lippert, which contains more than 30,000 hardcover and paperback editions of U.S. American comics and can be considered one of the most significant of its kind. The foundation’s goal is to preserve this collection for posterity and to use it to contribute to education and the promotion of art and culture.

In its rooms at the Cöln Comic Haus, the foundation offers exhibitions on changing subjects related to U.S. comics. These are made accessible to individuals and groups through regular guided tours. With its focus on an important American cultural asset on the border between art and pop culture, the Schmitz-Lippert Foundation is a venue for transatlantic educational work.

Since 2021, the foundation has been organizing readings, creative workshops and special exhibitions in the Comic Lab of the Comic Haus. Events that aim to promote reading skills are planned for the near future. For all events, artists and other cooperation partners are involved in order to promote local cartoonists and to introduce people to the medium of comics.

The work of the Schmitz-Lippert Foundation would not be possible without the help of supporters. Please feel free to visit the Comic Haus and share your ideas with us.