The de Young Art Museum in San Francisco, holds one of the top collections of American art in the United States. The permanent collection consists of 17th to 20th century American painting, drawings, and decorative art. Famous artists with displayed works here include Frederic Church, Grant Wood, George Bingham, and Richard Diebenkorn to name a few. In 2005, the de Young's newly redesigned building was open to the public after the original building was severely damaged by an earthquake. The fine renovations done to the museum and its surrounding areas make for a beautiful day trip in the city's Golden Gate Park. 

The de Young's 5 must-see artworks include:

1. Three Machines - American painter Wayne Thiebaud's is known for his works that capture nostalgic views of American pop art and of consumerist America. This painting is a watercolor of a row of three gumball machines, objects seen often in everyday America. Thiebaud's interest in American mass culture he felt were best captured in ordinary, everyday objects such as cakes, pastries, boots, toilets, toys, & lipstick.

2. Rainy Season in the Tropics - A painting of a dense jungle valley overtaken by an luminous rainbow by American landscape painter, Frederic Edwin Church. Like many of his landscape paintings, this work attracts a viewer's focus from afar. However, a closer look reveals the incredible detail such as the intricate trader and mule in the bottom right corner of the painting. This stunning work how demonstrates Church's concern "with adding a spiritual dimension in his works". 

3. Dinner for Threshers - An indoor dinner scene of Midwest wheat farmers by Grant Wood, an American painter best known for his satirical scenes of the rural American Midwest. He often styled his Midwesterner paintings with an element of naivety and narrow mindedness he felt characterized the small-town folk from that region. 

4. Boatmen on the Missouri - A depiction of 3 woodcutters working on the Missouri River by American artist, George Bingham, whose work depicted his view of American frontier life along the Missouri River. Bingham's work was rediscovered in the 1930s for its evocation of a bygone era in American history and he is now widely considered one of the greatest American painters of the 19th century.

5. Le Verre de Porto - "A Dinner Table at Night" is a painting of Madame Gautreau, a famous Parisian beauty by American Artist John Singer Sargent. His elegant portraits created an elegant image of society during the Edwardian age and his subjects tended to be celebrities, beautiful people, and the nobility of society.