[2] Charles West, the major donor of the early museum, cast his votes in favor of Eden Park sealing its final location.

The Cincinnati Wing also contains the work of Frank Duveneck, Rookwood Pottery, Robert Scott Duncanson, Mitchell & Rammelsberg Furniture, and a tall case clock by Luman Watson.

Following the success of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition held in Philadelphia, the Women's Art Museum Association was organized in Cincinnati with the intent of bringing such an institution to the region for the benefit of all citizens.

[6] In November 1887, the McMicken School relocated to the newly built museum campus and was renamed the Art Academy of Cincinnati.

Renovations during the late 1940s and early 1950s divided the Great Hall into two floors and the present main entrance to the Art Museum was established.

In addition, on May 17, 2003, the Art Museum eliminated its general admission fee forever, made possible by The Lois and Richard Rosenthal Foundation.

The art museum has paintings by several European masters, including: Master of San Baudelio, Jorge Ingles, Sandro Botticelli (Judith with Head of Holofernes), Matteo di Giovanni, Domenico Tintoretto (Portrait of Venetian dux Marino Grimani), Mattia Preti, Bernardo Strozzi, Frans Hals, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (St. Thomas of Villanueva), Peter Paul Rubens (Samson and Delilah) and Aert van der Neer.

The collection also includes works by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet (Rocks At Belle Isle), Vincent van Gogh, and Pablo Picasso.

In 2022 the museum discovered a portrait beneath Paul Cézanne's 1865 Still Life with Bread and Eggs when its chief conservator, Serena Urry, removing the painting from an exhibit in which it had been included and examining it for potential maintenance requirements, noticed unusual patterns in the cracking and "on a hunch" had it x-rayed.

Exhibitions included Paintings, Politics and the Monuments Men: The Berlin Masterpieces in America,[16] Hank Willis Thomas: All Things Being Equal...,[17] and No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man.

The museum found it impractical to spend as much as $2.5 million a year on special exhibitions when it has unexploited holdings like circus posters and Dutch contemporary design, especially given its declining endowment.