Stuart Silver, an inventive design director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the 1960s and ‘70s, who introduced style and spirit into museum exhibitions, died May 6 in Manhattan. He was 84.

Mr. Silver’s self-described “theatrical techniques” and the philosophy they suggested — “that a museum was a place of pleasure, that a spectacle could also be enrichment,” as he put it — were characteristic of a whole era at the Met.

The driving force and chief evangelist behind the new approach was Thomas Hoving, who in 1967 became the seventh director of the museum in its history. “I brought the ‘blockbuster’ exhibition to the Met,” Mr. Hoving wrote in Making the Mummies Dance, his 1993 book about running the museum, “but designer Stuart Silver brought them to life.”

Memorable exhibitions included “In the Presence of Kings,” “Tutankamun,” “The Great Age of Fresco,” which drew more than 180,000 visitors in its first month, “The Year 1200,” which featured about 300 objects lent by 16 countries.

Later, he joined the Knoll furniture designer firm, and also formed his own design firm, serving, among other museums and fairs, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in California

 

[On a personal note, some years ago, The Shofar editor interviewed Stuart Silver for a profile in The Scarsdale Inquirer, at which time he talked about his idea to make museum design “less stuffy,” he said, and to involve museum goers in a discovery experience. Exhibition is more than factual accuracy, he said.]