Hildegard Bacher t, who fled the Nazis as a teenager and joined a New York art gallery where, over a 78-year career, she helped introduce and popularize the works of German and Austrian Expressionists and the folk art of Grandma Moses, died on Oct. 17 in Brattleboro, Vt. She was 98 .

Her death was confirmed by Jane Kallir, director of the Galerie St. Etienne in Manhattan, which Ms. Kallir’s grandfather, Otto Kallir, founded in 1939.

Ms. Bachert first worked at the gallery as a secretary. She became co-director with Ms. Kallir after Dr. Kallir’s death in 1978 and remained in that position until last year, when she moved (she avoided saying “retired”) full time to her second home, in Vermont.

“I could have retired 20 years ago, but I can’t unglue myself,” she told The New York Times in 2015. “I’m too connected. It’s my baby.”