The Art Gallery Nees Morfes was founded in 1959 by Andreas Prokopiou, Dionyssia Prokopiou and Julia Dimakopoulou. The art critic, Angelos Prokopiou, was the art director and manager of the magazine under the same name until 1963, when he resigned due to his busy teaching schedule as art history professor at the National Technical University of Athens. His wife, Dionyssia, resigned as well. In 1968, after the death of Andreas Prokopiou, a new company was created under the same name, and Julia Dimakopoulou, Ioanna Mentzeniotou and Rita Pangalou as partners. Maria Vassiliou joined the company in 1976, and from 1991 until 2009, Heleni Kypraiou joined as well. Vasso Hatziparaschou and Nora Sakellariou became permanent associates in 1991 and 1999 respectively.
During the first decade of its existence, the gallery's activities involved artists who, one way or another, contributed to the dissemination of Abstraction in Greece. In collaboration with museums abroad, additional emphasis was placed on the participation of greek artists in international art events. At the same time, the gallery showcased works of european and american artists in Athens.
Nees Morfes activities spanned quite a wide range of art related events, including the organization of solo and group exhibitions of established and younger artists, both at the gallery's premises and other exhibition centres. Special attention was paid to the organization of thematic exhibitions, in collaboration with art historians and curators. These events were accompanied by the publication of catalogues and other information materials, and the organization of lectures and discussions, in order to generate a well-informed public on art related topics and developments. Another significant activity of the gallery was the organization of retrospective exhibitions of key artists, who largely contributed to the development and evolution of modern greek art.
In 2009, after 50 years of continuous presence in the greek art market, Nees Morfes ceased its operation as a gallery. Its senior partners decided to establish ISET (Contemporary Greek Art Institute, a non-profit civil company), in order to accumulate as efficiently and as effectively as possible, the necessary archival material that would register greek art's course of history from 1945 to date. The extensive archive of the gallery, which had carefully been collected over those 50 years, became part of the archives that ISET possesses today.