Over 100 years ago, a dedicated wallpaper dealer campaigned for the establishment of the German Wallpaper Museum: Gustav Iven built up an extensive wallpaper collection in Kassel from 1920 and, together with other wallpaper manufacturers and dealers, founded the association Deutsches Tapetenmuseum e.V. (German Wallpaper Museum).

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

In 1948, the museum was able to reopen on the second floor of the Weißenstein wing of Wilhelmshöhe Palace. Since then, the collection has been rebuilt and expanded step by step. In 1976, the collection was moved to the Hessian State Museum. In 1993, the state of Hesse took over the sponsorship 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 aim of presenting the collection.

The collection has been stored in a depot since 2008. Special exhibitions make parts of the collection accessible to the public from time to time. The German Wallpaper Museum is expected to reopen in a new building on Brüder-Grimm-Platz in 2026.