Faaborg Museum was created by the cannery owner Mads Rasmussen from Funen. He was a businessman with a great interest in art. In 1913-15, he built Faaborg Museum, designed by architect Carl Petersen. The building was located on a long narrow plot of land adjoining Rasmussen's home. The architect exploited the location with bravado. He created a building that was strongly inspired by the old classicist C.F. Hansen. The museum entrance is framed by columns, and the interior has beautiful rooms with mosaic floors. It has become an icon for a neo-classicistic era of Danish architecture.
In 1907, a feud arose between artists from Copenhagen and painters from Funen. The very academic Copenhageners looked down on the painters from Funen and called them peasant painters". The rich cannery owner Mads Rasmussen waded into the fray in support of the painters from Funen. He bought numerous pictures from painters such as Fritz Syberg, Peter Hansen and Johannes Larsen and created Faaborg Museum. Among the sculptors, he especially liked Kai Nielsen, who made the black granite statue of Mads Rasmussen in the museum's octagonal domed room. This made Mads Rasmussen a pioneer in two senses: By building the museum, he created architectural history, and by supporting the painters from Funen, he was a deciding factor in helping encourage the perception of them as a school of Danish art. "