Founded in 1904 by philanthropist Archer M. Huntington, the institution continues to operate at its original location in a 1908 Beaux Arts building on Audubon Terrace in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City.

Exterior sculpture in front of that building includes work by Anna Hyatt Huntington and nine major reliefs by the Swiss-American sculptor Berthold Nebel, a commission that took ten years to complete.

The collection includes important paintings by Diego Velázquez, Francisco de Goya, El Greco, and Joaquín Sorolla, among others.

The Sorolla Room, which was reinstalled in 2010, displays Vision of Spain, 14 massive paintings commissioned by Archer Huntington in 1911.

It also holds the manuscript Black Book of Hours, Horae Beatae Virginis Mariae ad usum Romanum (circa 1458), one of only a handful of such works, and the enormous Map of the World (1526) by Juan Vespucio.

This is mainly due to the fact that during the 16th to 17th centuries, Spain had set its sights on dominating most of North and South America.

Therefore, by the 18th century, the United States viewed Spain as an enemy that must be dealt with in order to move forward with American success in North America.

People started to realize that learning about Hispanic culture was important because it was such a large part of American history.

Hence, his idea for the institution was not narrowly for showing paintings, sculptures, and historical artifacts, but more widely for it to be used as a center for research and scholarly study.

A weekly event called "Tuesdays on the Terrace" was also organized by Dia over these years presenting public outdoor programing of dance, music, and poetry.

Due to financial difficulties, the society went to court in 2016 in order to be allowed to charge an admission fee to temporary exhibitions to be held in the museum's new facility, while keeping the main hall free.

The union stated that proposed salary increases would not offset the costs of the loss of benefits and that the administration had left the museum short-staffed and the collection in jeopardy due to a lack of safeguards.