On July 16, 1847, the "Society of Friends of Fine Arts in the Duchy of Nassau" was constituted. The founding members came from the upper middle classes. The purpose of the society was to revitalize the "sense of art" in Wiesbaden. In addition, the society, which had already been calling itself the Nassauischer Kunstverein since the 1850s, supervised the public art collection from the outset, which had been deposited in the Erbprinzenpalais since 1825. The conditions for art in Wiesbaden were very modest. An artistic life based on tradition had not been able to develop. How was this association to do justice to such a vacuum? On the one hand, it was obliged by its statutes to organize permanent and changing exhibitions, lectures and raffles in order to provide a forum for art in general, but there was a lack of impetus to take note of current art trends. On the other hand, in 1854 the association was also entrusted with the administration of the art collection, which, as part of a cabinet of curiosities, had previously been under the control of the library director. The gallery was to be curated in a conservational manner and completed in a meaningful way: an unrealizable undertaking. Princely patronage had already been requested in 1850, which was granted and at the same time entailed observance.

After Nassau was annexed by Prussia, the art collection received permanent loans from Berlin museums from 1884 onwards. What was intended as a corrective refurbishment of the collection had no notable effect until 1900, when the institutions housed in the Erbprinzenpalais were transferred to municipal control. The following year, the "Wiesbadener Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst" (Wiesbaden Society for Fine Arts) emerged as a competitor to the Nassauischer Kunstverein, shaking the previous art policy out of its lethargy as it was able to react seismographically to progressive developments. The founders of the society propagated private patronage and saw themselves as educators of the people in the sense of the art historian and educator Alfred Lichtwark.

After the so-called Neues Museum opened its doors in 1915, the two associations merged in 1917 to form an interest group. An adequate domicile was found, and the collector Heinrich Kirchhoff entrusted the museum with his high-caliber art collection. The museum exhibitions were always organized by the Nassauischer Kunstverein and during the 1920s reflected modern art history far removed from its centers: the spectrum ranged from Willi Baumeister, Max Beckmann and Otto Dix to Lyonel Feininger, George Grosz, Alexej von Jawlensky, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Oskar Schlemmer and Kurt Schwitters. The successful exhibitions of the Nassauischer Kunstverein, which were repeatedly linked to acquisitions and were also thanks to Edmund Fabry and Otto Ritschl, also substantially changed the standard of the picture gallery.

In 1929, the art historian Eberhard von Schenk zu Schweinsberg took over the management of the gallery and the chairmanship of the NKV at the same time. No sooner had the NKV's far-sighted exhibition "30 German Artists of Our Time" in alliance with the Kirchhoff Collection taken place in 1930 than the Nazi cultural barbarism began. Schenk zu Schweinsberg was succeeded in 1935 (until 1945) by the art historian Hermann Voss. In 1937, the personal union between the museum and the Kunstverein came to an end: The museum was placed under the Reich Ministry of Education, the Kunstverein under the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts. After the museum was requisitioned by the military in 1939, the Nassauischer Kunstverein was given premises at Wilhelmstraße 12/Luisenstraße 1. In 1949, the lawyer and intimate Goethe connoisseur Alfred Mayer (1888-1960) took over the chairmanship under the motto of critical continuity and courageous change and achieved the return of the Nassauischer Kunstverein to the museum in 1951.

Fundamental exhibitions meant that the Nassauischer Kunstverein could once again be taken seriously. A memorial exhibition for Jawlensky (1954) was organized, the theme was "Art on the Rhine" (1953) and the commitment to abstraction as a world language under the title "Couleur vivante - lebendige Farbe" (1957) and, above all, "Modern Art from Private Ownership in Wiesbaden" (1957) was presented with impressive works. In 1973, the museum was transferred to the state. The subsequent move of the Nassauischer Kunstverein to Wilhelmstraße 15 in 1979 was not only a spatial caesura. As a result of the revolt of 1968, a different Kunstverein profile emerged. Only an ever-expanding concept of art that included all conceivable variants of video art, performance, installation, concept art, etc. could correspond to the critical observation of the reality of life.

Today, the Nassauischer Kunstverein aspires to be absolutely open to the numerous forms of contemporary, as yet unestablished art and its mediation. The Nassauischer Kunstverein is a member of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Kunstvereine (ADKV). In 2007, the villa on Wilhelmstrasse was transferred to it for 66 years as an expression of "highest recognition". In cooperation with the state capital of Wiesbaden, the Nassauischer Kunstverein has awarded the annual scholarship "FOLLOW FLUXUS - Fluxus and the consequences" since 2008.