The rector of the Academy of Art, Architecture and Design is Boris Jirků

PRAGUE - The new rector of the Prague Academy of Art, Architecture and Design (UMPRUM) is painter Boris Jirků. In the second round of the election, he won against visual artist Marian Karel and curator Richard Drury. Jirků will replace architect Jiří Pelcl, who led the school for one term. The new rector told ČTK today that six members of the eleven-member committee voted for him, while Drury received four votes and Karel one.
The Academic Senate met on Thursday, October 20. An official statement regarding the rector's election will be available by the end of the week. "Due to the course of the elections, it is not possible to write the statement sooner," said Markéta Pražanová from the school's press department to ČTK. Jirků and Karel are also members of the Senate.
Fifty-year-old Boris Jirků has previously served twice as the chairman of the UMPRUM Academic Senate and has been a member of the Senate since 2002. He has worked at UMPRUM since 1990 as a teaching assistant in figure drawing; in 1992, he was appointed an associate professor in the field of drawing and painting, and in 2002 for the field of illustration and graphic art.
In his concept, he promises to increase transparency in the school's funding and improve communication among teachers, management, and students. He wants to introduce a system of "internal grants" to motivate and fund work for the school through the use of subsidies.
Jirků also claims that it is necessary to introduce a so-called sabbatical at the school, a period of leave - following the example of foreign universities or colleges where professors and academic staff could remain employees of the school for some time after a period, while dedicating themselves to their professional development.
Jirků studied at the Secondary School of Applied Arts in Uherské Hradiště, and from 1974 to 1980, he studied monumental painting in architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague under Arnošt Paderlík. His diploma work consisted of illustrations for Gabriel García Márquez's book "Autumn of the Patriarch."
He is known to the general public as the illustrator of Márquez's books, especially "One Hundred Years of Solitude." He has illustrated around fifty books, mostly of authors from Russian literature, in addition to the famous representative of magical realism. Boris Jirků is also a painter and sculptor. He has been exhibiting since 1980, organizing over 20 solo exhibitions and participating in dozens of group shows.

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