Modersohn-Becker

In 1906, the German artist Paula Modersohn-Becker, who had recently left her husband to pursue a bohemian life in Paris, scandalized viewers with two portraits of herself wearing little more than a favorite amber necklace.

After relocating to New York in 1939, the gallery gave such artists as Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, Paula Modersohn-Becker and Schiele their first American solo shows, with the help of longtime gallery co-director Hildegard Bachert, who died last month at the age of 98.

Like most shows at the Neue, this one is tightly focused on German and Austrian painters from the first half of the 20th century, combining museum-owned works by the famous Egon and Max of its title with lesser-known loans, like Paula Modersohn-Becker’s memorably odd 1906 “Self-Portrait on Her Sixth Wedding Anniversary.”

But he’s added Joan Mitchell, Nicole Eisenman and Tracey Emin to two painters he has previously mentioned: Paula Modersohn-Becker and Cecily Brown.

Eighteen days later, Modersohn-Becker died of a postpartum embolism.