King of Arts, The

Jack Kyle woos and wins wonderful cultural treasures for Jackson, Mississippi.

As he surveys the empty exhibition halls of the Mississippi Arts Pavilion, Jack Kyle's energy-charged voice ricochets off the walls, and some well-deserved gloating begins.

In this dim, yawning space, Jack envisions the splendid ghosts of treasures he's brought to Jackson in past years-amazing things such as the Faberge Gatchina Palace Imperial Egg, a rock crystal chandelier from the Palace of Versailles, and a 55-foot Baroque royal gondola from Spain.

Jack stops short, his face filled with question. "I'm not trying to force culture on anybody, but how can you go through your life and miss all this?" Indeed. The culture-comes-to-Mississippi exhibitions thus far include "Palaces of St. Petersburg: Russian Imperial Style" (1996), "Splendors of Versailles" (1998), and "The Majesty of Spain: Royal Collections From the Museo del Prado & Patrimonio Nacional" (2001).

As executive director of The Mississippi Commission for International Cultural Exchange, Jack combines the simplicity of his childhood in The Delta with a natural craving for knowledge. "I never knew all this existed," says the music major, now 52. "My life has been one continuous 'What's behind the next door?'"

That includes lots of doors-and the gumption to knock on them. "I persuaded the officials at Versailles to allow me to have the third copy in the world of the Equestrian Statue of Louis XIV by Bernini. The Louvre has a copy too."

Note the use of the word "persuade." Jack is one captivating, Champagne-sipping, at-ease-withanyone, convincing guy who could glibly talk a king out of his crown.

So how does he do it, this sparkle-in-the-eye guy from Minter City? He doesn't see The Delta, Mississippi, the South, or his lack of art history pedigree as a limitation. "A lot of times they think you're naive and have been shelling peas for 25 years," he says of the museum elite he charms. "I don't speak any language fluently except Southern. I think the way through that is to establish a trust. We are partners, and I want them to be just as excited about the project as I am."

"Excited" describes Jack at this moment. "The Glory of Baroque Dresden" opens in nine months, running March 1 through September 6, 2004. The anticipation is almost too much to bear-if it weren't for the details of re-creating the Audience Hall of Dresden Castle, plus designing space for the great jewel collection and paintings by old masters such as Vermeer, Titian, and Rembrandt.

You'd think he'd be blase by now, but Jack turns giddy describing the incoming items. "We have the 41-carat Dresden Green Diamond, unbelievable swords, the horse decorations and saddle from August the Strong's coronation, ornate costumes, silver tables, and portraits of [German leaders] August the Strong and August III by Louis de Silvestre."

He can go on and on-and it's easy to listen because the man knows his stuff. He won't drop a clue, but Jack already knows the theme and source of the next exhibition-for there's always a next.

So goes the mind of Jack Kyle, for whom the South is the world's epicenter. "Miss Eudora Welty once said of our exhibitions, 'There hasn't been so much commotion in Jackson since they paved the streets.' I like that. You can't ever consider something not possible, or you'd never get anywhere. I want to know about other cultures-and I want them to know about Mississippi."

Copyright Southern Progress Corporation Jun 2003
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