The Neue Galerie in New York City is the museum in that city I had most longed to visit, ever since reading an article about the collection of Klimt’s on view there.

I have loved Klimt ever since a college girlfriend turned me on to him. While the girl (and her tendency towards things like sleeping with other men) is out of my life, Klimt is still one of my touchstones.

But what I loved most about the Neue Galerie is how deeply their exhibits delve into other aspects of German and Austrian art and culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, especially the Secessionist movement in fin-de-siècle Vienna, beyond just a superstar like Klimt.

The collection of paintings and drawings by Egon Schiele was especially moving. Plus the examples of furniture, design, and fashion.

I was also suitably titillated at being able to sit on a re-creation of the couch Sigmund Freud’s patients sat upon during their sessions with the founder of pschotherapy.