All the Beauty in the World: A Museum Guards Adventures in Life, Loss and Art

(Hardback)

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A moving, revelatory portrait of one of the world's great museums and its treasures by a writer who spent a decade as a museum guard. A moving, revelatory portrait of one of the world's great museums and its treasures by a writer 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're 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'd be one of them. Then his older brother died of 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 and the reader's delight, 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 company 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 art 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.

Reviews

Consoling and beautiful * Guardian, *Nonfiction to look out for in 2023* *
Hauntingly beautiful ... elegant ... a work of art as luminous as the old masters' paintings that comforted [Bringley] in his grief * Daily Mail Online *
Bringley is a marvellous guide ... All the Beauty in the World succeeds joyously * Daily Telegraph *
Told with real literary gusto and an impressive command of pace and shape. After finishing this book, plenty of sensitive readers will be desperate to become museum guards * Sunday Times *
An uplifting memoir that recalls his time behind the scenes there with colour, pathos and flair * Mail on Sunday *
This absorbing memoir is also a beautifully written manual on how to appreciate art, and life. It's a must read for art lovers * Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl with a Pearl Earring *
Wonderful. If you have ever been to a museum and stood motionless before an exhibit, if you've ever looked at a painting and found yourself crying, if you have ever wondered how a sculptor could find a human body inside a block of stone, this book is for you * Natalie Haynes, author of A Thousand Ships *
This book makes me yearn to have Patrick Bringley at my side in every museum I will visit for the rest of my life. Having a copy of All the Beauty in the World in my purse will be the next best thing * Hope Jahren, author of Lab Girl *
An astounding book about an astounding place * Alex Ross, author of The Rest is Noise *
An intimate perspective on one of the world's greatest institutions. But All the Beauty in the World is about much more: the strange human impulse to make art, the mystery of experiencing art, and what role art can play in our lives. What a gift * Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind *
This book will change your experience of museums, connecting you with the stories of those who make them possible and revealing the layers of wonder that gather in the quiet halls where art meets modern life. Bringley's keen, warm-hearted dispatches remind us - as art itself should - of our common humanity * Mark Vanhoenacker, author of Imagine a City *
Intimate and fascinating * Town and Country *
Perhaps most importantly, though, All the Beauty in the World is a story about grief and about beauty, and about how inextricably the two are linked * Vox *
Illuminating and transformative * Kerry James Marshall, Artist *
A profound homage to the marvels of a world-class museum and a radiant chronicle of grief, perception, and a renewed embrace of life * Booklist *
Prepare to be wooed by this memoir, which doubles as a loving memoir of the Met from one of its most inside insiders: Patrick Bringliey, who worked at the museum as a guard for a decade. * LitHub *
A beautiful tale about beauty. It is also a tale about grief, balancing solitude and comradeship, and finding joy in both the exalted and the mundane * Washington Post *
Bringley's memoir abounds with small details ... but it also has grander subjects to address - namely, solitude, the staying power of art, and grief. ... In the end, All the Beauty in the World is an empathetic chronicle of one museum, the works collected there and the people who keep it running - all recounted by an especially patient observer * New York Times Book Review *
Simply wonderful. This funny, moving, beautifully written book takes the reader on a journey that unfolds as epiphanies. It is a testament to the capacity of art to illuminate life * Keith Christiansen, Curator Emeritus, the Metropolitan Museum of Art *
Few know the secrets of the Metropolitan Museum of Art like the guards who roam its two million square feet treasure, keeping an eye on its treasures. For a decade, Patrick Bringley was one of them, and in this moving memoir, he recounts bonding with his colleagues and marveling at the beautiful works of art he is entrusted to protect * New York Post *

Author Bio

Patrick Bringley worked for ten years as a guard in the galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Prior to that, he worked in the editorial events office at the New Yorker magazine. He lives with his wife and children in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. All the Beauty in the World is his first book.