The commission recommended Jiří Fajt as the director of the NG

Prague - The selection committee that evaluated candidates for the position of director of the National Gallery in Prague (NG) recommended art historian Jiří Fajt for appointment to the minister on Wednesday. This was reported to ČTK by two well-informed sources, although not from the committee members or candidates. Ten out of twelve committee members voted in favor of him. Fajt was the director of the Collection of Old Art at the NG in the 1990s and later worked abroad.
    He left the National Gallery after Milan Knížák took over, becoming the general director of the entire institution in 1999. In recent years, Jiří Fajt has been one of his critics. He is known domestically primarily as the co-author of a successful exhibition on Charles IV and Gothic art, which was well received four years ago at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and later at Prague Castle.
    Culture Minister Václav Riedlbauch, who did not participate in the committee's deliberations, received the results today. However, Jan Cieslar, a spokesman for the ministry, told ČTK that the ministry would not disclose anything regarding the selection process for now. The minister wants to study the committee's output and the candidates' projects. However, he will be leaving for a foreign business trip on Saturday. When announcing the competition, he stated that in the case of a unanimous decision by the committee, its verdict would be published immediately.
    However, the minister does not have to follow the committee's recommendation when appointing Milan Knížák's successor. Riedlbauch previously indicated that he would like to select a new director for the NG before the May elections.
    A total of eight people applied for the competition, with one candidate disqualified due to failure to meet formal requirements. Among the candidates were the current director of the Collection of Old Art at the NG, Vít Vlnas, the director of the Moravian Gallery in Brno, Marek Pokorný, curator Richard Drury, gallery owner Monika Burian, and likely the current director of the NG, Milan Knížák.

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Jiří Fajt (* 1960)

Education
graduated from the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague (1983) and studied the history of art at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague (1994)

Experience
worked as a window cleaner in the second half of the 1980s, later worked at the Lapidarium of the National Museum in Prague (1988 to 1993), from 1994 to 2000 he was employed at the National Gallery, leading the Collection of Old Art from 1995; since 2000, he has worked mainly in Germany, teaching at universities in Berlin and Prague

Other
- Left the National Gallery shortly after Milan Knížák took over, "to avoid having to compete with an authoritarian general director."
- Two years ago he said that "under Knížák's leadership, many qualified professionals were forced to leave the NG... from an internationally recognized institution with a diverse range of exhibition and scientific activities, it has become a closed office that does not communicate with the international museum scene."
- Fajt, as an art historian, specializes in medieval art and has authored numerous publications and articles in domestic and foreign journals, editing several collections or exhibition catalogs.
- He has a number of exhibitions to his name as a curator. Among the most notable were the exhibition "Magister Theodoricus, court painter of Emperor Charles IV," hosted at the Convent of St. Agnes from 1997 to 1998, or "Charles IV, Emperor by the Grace of God," which was hosted in 2005 and 2006 by New York and later by Prague Castle.