RICHMOND, VIRGINIA.-The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Board of Trustees today selected Alexander Lee Nyerges to be the museum's next director. Nyerges, 49, has been director and CEO of the Dayton Art Institute in Dayton, Ohio, since 1992. Nyerges is expected to begin his new duties at VMFA on Aug. 1. He will replace Dr. Michael Brand, who left VMFA late last year to be director of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

"The VMFA Board of Trustees is delighted that Alex Nyerges will become the museum's eighth director," said Charlotte Minor, president of the museum's board.

"He brings with him 24 years of museum experience and a proven record of outstanding leadership and vision. As director of the Dayton Art Institute he transformed that historic mid-sized institution into a cornerstone of the community. We believe he can build on VMFA's great past and do the same here as we move forward with our expansion project."

James Cherry, chairman of the trustee search committee, said, "Alex Nyerges has made significant accomplishments in terms of increasing attendance, membership and programming in Dayton, and we believe he will do the same thing at VMFA. Ours is an extraordinary institution with a long record of success. Alex Nyerges is an extraordinary museum director with a long record of success. It is really exciting to be bringing these two high achievers together."

"Alex is a true museum professional," said John E. Buchanan, director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. "It was a pleasure to work with him in conjunction with 'Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art: Treasures from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.' The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco look forward to partnering with Alex and VMFA on international exhibitions in the future."

(The Rembrandt exhibition, debuting in September at the Dayton Art Institute, will also travel to the Portland Art Museum. Buchanan was director at Portland before becoming head of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco earlier this year.)

"I am thrilled to be joining VMFA at a point of unprecedented development for the museum," Nyerges said. "The building project, expanded exhibition program and emphasis on increased state services are a formula for transformational and dynamic growth."

During Nyerges' tenure in Dayton, attendance increased from an average of 160,000 visitors annually in 1992 to more than 537,000 in 2005. The permanent collection grew dramatically through major gifts and acquisitions - from 8,000 works to more than 26,000.

Art given during his tenure was valued at more than $42 million. The museum's endowment, investments and planned gifts grew from less than $8 million in 1992 to more than $22 million today. Membership increased from 2,500 households to more than 17,000.

At Dayton, Nyerges organized a major international exhibition of the work of Edgar Degas and served as exhibition curator and catalogue author for "In Praise of Nature: Ansel Adams and Photographers of the American West" (1999), "Edward Weston: A Photographer's Love of Life" (2004) and "Pre-Columbian Treasures: The Harold W. Shaw Collection" (2002). An exhibition at Dayton last year of Egyptian art organized by the National Gallery of Art from the collection of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo drew more than 125,000 visitors.

He managed a $24 million expansion and renovation of the Dayton museum in 1997 and opened the doors to visitors 365 days per year, including Thursday and Friday evenings.

Child Magazine ranks the Dayton Art Institute as the No. 3 most kid-friendly museum in the country. (The Art institute of Chicago and The Metropolitan Museum of Art are ranked No. 1 and No. 2.)

Before joining the Dayton institution, Nyerges was executive director of the Mississippi Museum of Art (1985-1992) in Jackson, Miss., where he created and managed branches in Tupelo and Biloxi and established a statewide presence for the museum, and he was executive director of the DeLand Museum of Art (1981-1985) in DeLand, Fla., where he transformed a general museum into a respected and well-attended Contemporary museum.

He did archaeological field work at Paleolithic sites in eastern Colorado for the Smithsonian Institution in 1977, as well as at Colonial sites in New York and St. Mary's City, Md.

A native of Rochester, N.Y., he was graduated from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. in 1981 with a master's degree in museum studies. His 1979 undergraduate degree is from the same school with a double major in American civilization and in anthropology/archaeology. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa as an undergraduate.