The museum's origins are in the "New Britain Institute", chartered in 1853 with the goal of fostering education and art in the city, especially among its immigrant population.

In 1903, the museum received a bequest of $20,000 from John Butler Talcott[3][4][5] to acquire "original modern oil paintings either by native or foreign artists".

[6] Sanford B. D. Low, a son-in-law of William H. Hart, at one time president of New Britain's Stanley Works, was the museum's first director.

The museum's holdings in post-Civil War figural painting and sculpture, include works by Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent, J. Alden Weir, George de Forest Brush, Joseph DeCamp, Frank Benson, Edmund C. Tarbell, William Paxton, Elizabeth Nourse, and 19 plasters and bronzes by Solon Borglum.

Among the later Impressionist works are paintings by William Glackens, Ernest Lawson, Frederick Carl Frieseke, Louis Ritman, Richard Emil Miller, and Maurice Prendergast.

[9] The museum's contemporary art holdings include works by Chuck Close, Dan Flavin, Eva Hesse, Julie Heffernan, Walton Ford, Ronnie Landfield, and Graydon Parrish.

The museum is the first to build a collection of Post-contemporary Art, centered around Parrish's 9/11 painting and including works by Tony Curanaj, Daniel Maidman, Richard T. Scott, Sadie Valerie, Stephanie Deshpande, and Patricia Watwood, among others.