The collection was founded by the psychiatrist Karl Wilmanns and his assistant, doctor Hans Prinzhorn, in the early 1920s.[1][4] Between 1919 and 1921 the pair visited mental hospitals across Germany, initially collecting over 5000 works.[4][5][2] As of 2016, the collection held over 20,000 works.[5] Prinzhorn, a physician and art historian, was engaged by the hospital in 1919 specifically to improve and expand the collection.[6]
Works from the collection were included in Entartete Kunst, the famous 1937 Nazi exhibition of 'degenerate' art.[6] Following the war, the collection, largely neglected, was stored in the attic of the hospital.[6] In 1973 a conservation effort was undertaken that led to the restoration and cataloguing of the collection.[6]
The collection was influential on the practice of the artist Jean Dubuffet, who visited it in 1950.[7] Writing to Henri Matisse, Dubuffet described it as "something I have dreamt of for years."[8]
In 2001 the collection was opened to the public as the Sammlung Prinzhorn Museum.[9]
