The Kuopio Art Museum building was completed in 1904 to become the Kansallis-Osake-Pankki bank. The art nouveau style building was designed by architect Vilho Penttilä. Penttilä was a partner in the architect and construction company “Arkkitehtuuri- ja käytännöllinen rakennustoimisto Usko Nyström, Petrelius and Penttilä”, from whom Kansallis-Osake-Pankki commissioned several bank buildings all over Finland. The contractor for the building was the construction supervisor Oskar Flink in Kuopio. He was responsible for the construction of many of the major buildings in Kuopio at the turn of the 19th and 20th century.

The building has been modernised and expanded multiple times. The first expansion was designed by Kauno S. Kallio already in 1924-1925. The corner tower was taken down and the interior design was modernised to the classicist style of the 1920s. For example the rich national romantic decorations were replaced by light surfaces and black-and-white. The entrance to the building was redesigned in 1958 according to a plan by the architect K.A. Pinomaa, and large display windows were installed on the façade. Pinomaa also designed the new furniture.

Banking operations in the building ended in 1977, when the City of Kuopio bought the building. City architect Pertti Pakkala led the design of the building’s conversion plans, and the building was converted into an art museum. The opening of the Kuopio Art Museum was celebrated on 25th of April 1980.

The art museum was renovated in 2003-2004. The main designer of the renovation was the city architect Eero Koivisto. The renovation modernised the building services engineering, renewed the exhibition and office spaces, and built a bright glass-walled staircase on the courtyard side of the building.

Of the original art nouveau style of the building is now preserved only the Kauppakatu side entrance, the serrated moulding of the facade, and the lizard motif next to the windows of the first floor. The staircase to the offices behind the entrance on Kauppakatu, known as the cat staircase, also retains the art nouveau spirit of the building. The staircase has one of the building’s original ceiling lamps, a decorative handrail and the cat ornament that gives the staircase its name.

The cat, who also appears in the Kuopio Art Museum’s products, was found hiding under layers of paint during the renovation of the museum in 2003-2004. Master painter Juhani Väätäinen repainted the cat ornament according to a model pattern that was discovered under the layers of paint. The original interior of the building was highly decorative, and the ornament is one of the original decorative motifs of the building. Architect Vilho Penttilä used a similar decorative motif in the Wilkman House, completed in Helsinki in 1904, which can be found on Liisankatu. The cats of Wilkman House are located in relief frieze on the façade of the building.