The museum was inaugurated in 1974 following the donation received by the Regole d'Ampezzo from Rosa Braun, widow of Mario Rimoldi, a collector from Cortina d'Ampezzo.

Artists such as de Pisis, De Chirico, Sironi, Campigli, and Music, who frequented the Ampezzo valley, established a fruitful friendship with the collector Mario Rimoldi.

In 1941, when the first Exhibition of contemporary art collections opened in Cortina, Mario Rimoldi's collection was already outlined: outstanding are the splendid de Pisis, Morandi, Semeghini, Rosai, Campigli, Sironi, Garbari, Severini, Tosi, and Guidi.

After the war, the collection expanded to include experimental works by artists who were already represented with figurative paintings. The collector became interested in artists linked to the figurative trend and the Veneto region, such as Cadorin, Cesetti, Saetti, Tomea, and Depero, with openings also towards new movements forming outside Veneto. The collection enriched with La Zolfara by Guttuso and works by the protagonists of the new experimentation, such as Corpora, Crippa, Dova, Morlotti, Music, Santomaso, Vedova. It also discovered foreign artists, such as Kokoschka, Leger, Villon, Zadkine, and approached the protagonists of the neo-avant-garde and the abstract artists of the 1950s.

The Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities declared the collection of cultural interest as the result of a fifty-year collecting activity, constituting one of the most significant ensembles in Italy for 20th-century art; for the presence of masterpieces by authors such as Savinio, Garbari, Depero, Guttuso, and some substantial nuclei essential for the study of de Pisis, Sironi, De Chirico, Semeghini, Tomea, Tosi, Campigli.

In the permanent exhibition stand out the Church of Cortina and The French Soldier by de Pisis, Bathers by Carena, Squero di San Travaso by Semeghini, La Zolfara by Guttuso, St. Sebastian by Garbari, Ile des charmes by Savinio, and Concert by Campigli.