The purpose of the non-profit association is to realize in trust the founder's will expressed in the will of the painter Otto Ritschl dated 3 October 1971 by making a substantial part of his artistic work permanently accessible to the public. In his will, Ritschl divided his estate into a core collection of inalienable paintings and prints and a collection of his works that can be sold for the purposes of the association.

The Museumsverein Otto Ritschl e.V. was founded by Otto Ritschl in Wiesbaden in 1971. He invited friends and public figures to the foundation and, by donating his paintings to the public, combined this with the intention of setting up a publicly accessible museum for his important collection of paintings. In the statutes, a high educational standard is formulated, which should serve the cultural development and unfolding of people. Cooperation with museums and galleries in other cities is also expected.

The Otto Ritschl Museum Association, which only had a few members, was unable to establish a Ritschl Museum. The "Gesellschaft der Freunde Otto Ritschls e.V." was therefore founded with the aim of preserving his studio house at Schumannstraße 50 as a cultural meeting place and exhibition space. The members organized meetings to discuss Ritschl's artistic and intellectual ideas. As the society was also unable to maintain the studio house, the establishment of a Ritschl Gallery was abandoned.

In 1988, the management consultant Tom Sommerlatte took over the chairmanship of the Otto Ritschl Museum Association, and together with the then director of the Museum Wiesbaden, Volker Rattemeyer, a concept for the preservation of the Ritschl estate in the Museum Wiesbaden was developed. Ritschl's late work - also his main work - shows a proximity to contemporary American painting. Under the general theme of "Color as a spatial-meditative design value", paintings by Ritschl and one new acquisition each by Mark Rothko and Ad Reinhardt were exhibited together as permanent loans at the Museum Wiesbaden. In 1997/98, the museum presented an extensive Otto Ritschl retrospective, which was accompanied by a richly illustrated catalog.

In order to keep the name Ritschl alive for the next generation of artists, the "Otto Ritschl Prize" was awarded, which offers the winner an exhibition in the Museum Wiesbaden with a catalog and includes prize money. The prizewinners were Gotthard Graubner (2001), Ulrich Erben (2003), Kazuo Katase (2009) and Katharina Grosse (2015). The association acquired a work from the prizewinner Erben as a permanent loan for the museum. In 2010, it presented two three-part late works by Ritschl to the parish of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary in Wiesbaden-Kohlheck for permanent display in the church building designed by Berlin architect Johannes Jackel.