Born Barrie Bates in New Zealand, he became Billy Apple in London, embarking on a long career that marched through art explorations, from Pop to conceptual to self-branding.
Stuart Silver, Designer of Museum Blockbusters, Dies at 84
He helped reinvigorate the Metropolitan and made its exhibitions into crowd-pleasing spectacles, providing a model for other fine-art museums across the country.
Stuart Silver in 1983 as he prepared for “The Art of the Popes,” a sprawling exhibition of Vatican art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He designed a number of hugely popular shows there. Credit.Ángel Franco/The New York Times
June 9, 2021, 3:28 p.m. ET
Stuart Silver, who as the inventive design director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the 1960s and ’70s turned the presentation of art into a gasp-inducing genre of theater, giving the staid institution mass appeal and inspiring widespread changes in the style and spirit of museum exhibitions, died on May 6 in Manhattan. He was 84.