All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me

Summary

A fascinating, revelatory portrait of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasures by a former New Yorker staffer who spent a decade as a museum guard

Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They are the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house.

Caught up in his glamorous fledgling career at the New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought he would be one of them. Then his older brother was diagnosed with fatal cancer, and he found himself needing to escape the mundane clamor of daily life. So he quit the New Yorker and sought solace in the most beautiful place he knew.

To his surprise, this temporary refuge becomes Bringley’s home away from home for a decade. We follow him as he guards delicate treasures from Egypt to Rome, strolls the labyrinths beneath the galleries, wears out nine pairs of shoes, and marvels at the beautiful works in his care.

Bringley enters the museum as a ghost, silent and almost invisible, but soon finds his voice and his tribe: the artworks and their creators and the lively subculture of museum guards—a gorgeous mosaic of artists, musicians, blue-collar stalwarts, immigrants, cutups, and dreamers.

As his bonds with his colleagues and the artwork grow, he comes to understand how fortunate he is to be walled off in this little world and how much it resembles the best aspects of the larger world to which he gradually, gratefully returns.

All The Beauty in the World is a surprising, inspiring portrait of a great museum, its hidden treasures, and the people who make it tick, by one of its most intimate observers.