Ms Churcher, who was director of the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) from 1990 to 1997, was the first and so far only female director of the NGA.
She was known as Betty Blockbuster as a result of the large-scale exhibitions of famous European artworks she organised during her time at the NGA.
Before that, she was director of the Art Gallery of Western Australia.
She continued to promote Australian and international art to the public in later years, with a series of popular television programmes.
NGA director Gerard Vaughan described Ms Churcher as a "towering figure in the Australian art community".
"She will always be remembered here with deep affection for her tireless promotion of our visual culture, including her role as a popular presenter on TV, and I am reminded daily of her contribution to the nation," he said in a statement released by the gallery.
Ms Churcher was born in the Queensland city of Brisbane in 1931 and discovered art when her father took her to the Queensland Art Gallery as a child.
"It was like stepping on a magic carpet because off I went!" she once said in an interview.
In recent years, declining eyesight made it increasingly difficult for her to look at the paintings she loved.
In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation several years ago she said that when she realised she could no longer remember the paintings in the Prado and the National Gallery that she adored, she decided to tour the great galleries of Europe, sketch the masterpieces and commit their details to memory.
"The paintings that I most like are the ones that demand a second, and a third and a fourth look," she said.
"And each time you look, they've got something more to give you.
"I know that I could look at Velazquez's Maid of Honour until I died and I still couldn't get to the bottom of it, to find out how it was that he did it."
Ms Churcher was married to artist Roy Churcher, who died last year. She died on Monday night surrounded by her four sons.

Councillors are to meet next week to consider bids to turn the hall into a food market or a hotel, with council officials backing the food hall plan.
However a number of pre-conditions would need to be met before a draft lease could be agreed, at the authority's February meeting.
The B-listed Edwardian building has sat empty since it closed 10 years ago.
Councillors deferred a decision on which development bid to back, if any, in July, calling for further reports from Historic Scotland and other agencies and further information from the applicants.
At that stage, council officials had backed the view of independent property specialists Jones Laing LaSalle that the Perth Market Place Ltd proposal should be preferred to the hotel bid from the Seventy Group.
A report to councillors ahead of Wednesday's full council meeting noted that "there has been a change in circumstances which significantly impacts upon the Seventy Group's bid", meaning no further information could be provided.
Planning and development head David Littlejohn has asked councillors to give the marketplace proposal "preferred bidder status" to allow detailed negotiations to take place.
Should this happen, a draft lease could potentially be considered by the council in February 2016, although this would also have to be signed off by the Perth Common Good Fund Committee.
The Edwardian building, which dates back to 1911, was closed 10 years ago after a modern new concert hall was opened in the city.
Decisions over its future have been drawn out over a decade since then, with councillors at one point approving plans to have it demolished, which were subsequently blocked by Historic Scotland opposition.
The development management committee then backed the Seventy Group plans to convert it into a luxury hotel, before councillors agreed to publicly market a 125-year lease on the building to find an alternative to demolition.
Five bids were submitted in January, which where whittled down to two by July when councillors deferred the decision.
Should neither bid ultimately win approval, demolition could still be an option, although Historic Scotland chief executive Ian Walford warned he would be minded to object to such a move.
Mr Littlejohn also noted in his report that Historic Scotland had underlined that "the process cannot be allowed to perpetuate", and that a decision will have to be made.
Betty Churcher, one of Australia's most popular and innovative arts administrators, has died aged 84.
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A decision on the future of demolition-threatened Perth City Hall will not be made until February 2016.