NEW YORK.- Legendary museum curator William S. Lieberman, 82, died at his home in New York. He was the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Chairman of the Modern Art Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He curated more than 35 exhibitions at this museum.

Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan, said, "He was a great presence in the modern museum field, and he had a huge influence on two generations of collectors and scholars."

He was born William Slattery Lieberman in Paris on Feb. 14, 1923. He was the son of Max Lieberman, a scholar of late medieval church history, and Bertha Slattery. In 1943 he began working at the department of exhibitions and publications at the Museum of Modern Art. He then became an assistant to Alfred H. Barr Jr., the Modern's founding director in 1945. He became director of the department of prints in 1949. Later the department included drawings. In 1967 he was appointed a curator in the department of painting and sculpture. In 1971 the museum’s departments were reorganized and he became director of the department of drawings. In 1979 he was hired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art as chairman of the department of 20th-century art.