My visit to the Neue Galerie was a revelation. How is it possible that I had never heard of Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907)? Yes, the history of art has been written by men and the exclusion of women from the canon has been well documented. Yes, she died at the age of 31. Yes, her work is in very few collections outside Germany. But I’m still amazed that so wonderful a painter had somehow never come to my attention.

The exhibition in New York comprised four small rooms of (mostly) paintings. Her career might have been short (she died from a pulmonary embolism just a few days after giving birth to the child she had longed to have), but Modersohn-Becker was prolific in the few years she was active. Portraits and self portraits dominate the show, paintings that show the influence of contemporaries like Gauguin, masters she admired like Cezanne, and even African art. On this evidence, one can only imagine what extraordinary work lay ahead if she had lived longer.

This exhibition heads to the Art Institute of Chicago in the autumn, after which most of these beautiful paintings will go back to Bremen and into private collections. See it now if you can.