From Publishers Weekly
With full cooperation from one of the world's greatest art museums, London-based journalist Danziger (
The Year 1000) interviewed over 50 individuals who attend to everything from the museum's artwork to its cleanliness, security, flowers and food. The result is a riveting, insightful and often touching group portrait of those who run New York's premier tourist attraction. Because the chapters are organized alphabetically, the story of how an aspiring opera singer became a waitress in the Trustees Dining Room is followed by the curator of European paintings describing how the museum acquired Duccio's
Madonna and Child in 2005. Such juxtapositions reflect the varied mosaic of personalities that make up the Met, yet also serve an implicit purpose: to demystify and personalize the institution. Danziger's own curiosity is broad-ranging and infectious, and while the picture that emerges of the Met is overwhelmingly positive, issues such as curatorial bias, racial and ethnic diversity among the museum's visitors and the commercialization of museums are raised. This book is unique, highly enjoyable and will appeal to anyone—from the generalist to the specialist—interested in an intimate and rare view of the Metropolitan.
(June 25) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a grand, inviting, and endlessly inspiring treasury of myriad forms of art from nearly every culture on earth. Resplendent in the clasp of New York City's magnificent Central Park, the Met, founded in 1870, is the second largest museum in the world, following the Louvre, and draws four million international visitors each year. Much has been written about the museum's vast holdings and rise to prominence. Now Danziger (1215: The Year of Magna Carta, 2005) captures the spirit of the living museum in a fresh and intimate oral history portraying 52 out of 2,000 full-time employees. Readers will meet a 30-year information-desk veteran; the museum's gifted florist; the librarian; ardent curators who wax eloquent about their collections, from tapestries to baseball cards to Vermeers to musical instruments; the security chief; a cleaner; a waitress; and the director. Each offers intriguing disclosures both personal and institutional, and all marvel at their good fortune. Danziger's finely crafted interviews remind us that a museum is more than its collections. Seaman, Donna
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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