Over 100 years ago, a dedicated wallpaper merchant advocated for the establishment of the German Wallpaper Museum: Gustav Iven started building an extensive wallpaper collection in Kassel from 1920 onwards and, together with other wallpaper manufacturers and merchants, founded the association German Wallpaper Museum e.V.

On June 30, 1923, the German Wallpaper Museum was finally inaugurated in the Red Palais (one of the two main buildings of the Residenzpalais) at Friedrichplatz - as a private institution with a collection of around 9,000 objects. By 1934, the collection had grown to around 20,000 objects, so parts of the collection were also exhibited in the other main building of the Residenzpalais, the White Palais. However, the bombings during World War II destroyed the Red Palais and parts of the wallpaper collection.

In 1948, the museum was able to reopen on the 2nd floor of the White Stone Wing of Wilhelmshöhe Castle. Since then, the collection has been gradually rebuilt and expanded. In 1976, the collection was moved to the Hessian State Museum. From 1993, the state of Hesse took over the management of the Wallpaper Museum. The collection itself initially remained the property of the German Wallpaper Museum Association and was transferred to the state of Hesse in 2017 with the requirement to present the collection.

Since 2008, the collection has been stored in a depot. Special exhibitions make parts of the collection accessible to the public again and again. The German Wallpaper Museum is expected to reopen in a new building at Brüder-Grimm-Platz in 2026.