The mission of the Neue Galerie New York is to collect, preserve, research, and exhibit fine and decorative art of Germany and Austria from the first half of the twentieth century.

The museum collection covers a range of media, including painting, sculpture, works on paper, decorative arts, and photographs created in Austria and Germany between 1890 and 1940. The extended Neue Galerie collection is comprised of works belonging to Ronald S. Lauder, to the Estate of Serge Sabarsky, and to the museum itself. 

The Austrian material emphasizes the special relationship that existed in Vienna circa 1900 between the fine and decorative arts. Major artists in the field of fine arts include Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Alfred Kubin, and Richard Gerstl. Decorative arts include the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops) and the designs of such well-known figures as Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser, and Dagobert Peche. The architects Adolf Loos and Otto Wagner are also represented.

The collection of German art focuses on important movements of the early twentieth century. Max Beckmann, as well as Expressionist artists Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Emil Nolde, receive special attention. The Bauhaus is well represented, with strength in the area of decorative arts. Artists of note who were affiliated with the Bauhaus include Theodor Bogler, Marianne Brandt, Marcel Breuer, László Moholy-Nagy, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Oskar Schlemmer, and Wilhelm Wagenfeld. Holdings of Neue Sachlichkeit material include both well-known and less familiar artists, including Albert Birkle, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Karl Hubbuch, Felix Nussbaum, and Georg Scholz.