The National Gallery is missing dozens of items, Fajt is preparing changes

Prague - The National Gallery (NG) in Prague is missing dozens of collection items, as revealed by the Supreme Audit Office (NKÚ). During the inventory of the collection concluded in 2012, the gallery could not locate, for example, 31 drawings, including works by Josef Lada, František Kupka, and Jan Zrzavý. The criminal report regarding the loss of Zrzavý's drawing "Zeyerova zahrada" was only filed by the National Gallery during the NKÚ inspection, that is, at least 13 years after the artwork went missing.
    The office informed today that its inspection was related to the management of the National Gallery, the National Library, and the National Technical Library in Prague for the years 2012 to 2014. The most serious deficiencies were found at the National Gallery.
    According to the current director Jiří Fajt, the NKÚ inspection is welcomed by the gallery and is seen as an opportunity to definitively sever ties with the past. He did not rule out that further criminal reports could still be filed. At the same time, a reorganization is planned to prevent similar issues in the future.
    The National Gallery lent Zrzavý's drawing along with 16 other drawings for the "Prague 1990" exhibition at the museum in Amsterdam from 1999 to 2000. "After the exhibition concluded, the gallery documented that it received the drawing back from the transport company, but after two years it discovered that the drawing was missing," stated the NKÚ. However, the criminal report was only filed many years later. In addition to several dozen drawings, one painting, a bronze sculpture, and 978 collection items listed in the graphics subcollection were also unaccounted for.
    The NKÚ also criticized the National Gallery for not conducting an inventory of the collection stored at the Zbraslav Castle depository after the 2002 floods, thus being unaware of the actual extent of damages to the collection items. In connection with the floods, 35 works were found missing, mostly by Czech sculptor Karel Dvořák. Additionally, the representatives of the National Gallery did not inform the police about the missing items, as discovered by the NKÚ.
    Milan Knížák served as the director of the National Gallery in Prague from 1999 to 2011 but denies responsibility for the missing items. "As far as I know, the inventory concluded in 2012, when I was no longer director. These matters can only be evaluated after the inventory is finished. An inventory of a collection that has 250,000 works is extremely complex and takes years. Therefore, I am not responsible for it," Knížák told ČTK today.
    In May 2011, he was dismissed from the head of the NG and replaced by Vladimír Rösel. Rösel led the National Gallery until April 2013 when he was abruptly dismissed by then Minister Alena Hanáková. In July, at a time when she herself resigned and the entire government was in a state of resignation, she appointed Jiří Fajt as director without a competition. She referred to previously held competitions. Fajt's successor, Jiří Balvín, a minister of the caretaker government, postponed Fajt's assumption of the role and entrusted the management of the NG to the head of the Old Art Collection, Vít Vlnas. Fajt took office on July 1, 2014.
    The current head of the gallery emphasized today that all findings of the NKÚ relate to the period before the previous leadership of the gallery. He stated on Czech Television that the identified problems are a result of a poorly set control system within the NG.
    The inspection also uncovered deficiencies in public procurement procedures. The National Technical Library and the National Gallery awarded public contracts worth tens of millions of crowns to a specific company without an open tender. Their arguments for awarding the contract to a pre-selected company were not accepted by the auditors.
    In the case of the National Library, the NKÚ also found that employees used official vehicles for private trips, and the library paid for fuel. The NKÚ classified such conduct as a violation of budget discipline of over 42,000 crowns and reported it to the relevant financial office. According to today's statement, the library has already initiated necessary legal steps. "Of course, we will settle the payment for the violation of budget discipline as soon as possible," Irena Maňáková from the National Library stated in response to inquiries from ČTK.