Once again, one museum's temporary closing is San Francisco's temporary gain. Recent years have brought Picasso to the de Young from the Musee National Picasso, and Dutch treasures (including Girl With a Pearl Earring) to the same museum from the Netherlands' Mauritshuis. Now, the renovation of the National Gallery of Art's East Building brings a trove of celebrated works from Washington, D.C. to the Legion of Honor. The biggest names in Impressionism — including Monet, Renoir, and Cezanne — are represented in "Intimate Impressionism," which also features Van Gogh and other Post-Impressionism stalwarts. It's a chance to see more than 60 paintings, including Madame Henriot, a swirl of brush strokes by Renoir that captures a young actress named Henriette Henriot, and Still Life with Milk Jug and Fruit, a typical Cezanne work that elevates a seemingly ordinary interior scene into a work of the highest order. The opening day features a lecture by Mary Morton, curator and head of the French paintings department at the National Gallery of Art.
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