 Silver started his career as an art historian, first studying at Columbia University art history graduate department under Meyer Schapiro.He never finished his PHD thesis on Giacometti but instead started drawing and making plaster heads which later turned into large complex figurative plaster and clay installations which were often critiqued in the New York Times by art critic Michael Brenson and others.Silver went on to cast many of his large ethereal figures from plaster to bronze.