Aaron Shikler dies; Kennedy portrait artist was 93

Aaron Shikler, a court painter of American nobility whose best known works included the posthumous official White House portrait of John F. Kennedy, a rendering that showed the slain president eyes down and arms folded, died Nov. 12 at his home in Manhattan. He was 93.

Shikler was for decades one of the most sought-after portraitists in the United States. In the political world, his subjects included President Ronald Reagan and first ladies Nancy Reagan and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But Shikler was most recognized as a painter of the Kennedys. After the president's assassination in 1963, his widow, Jacqueline Kennedy, hired him to paint their children, Caroline and John-John. Those sessions led to Shikler's selection in the late 1960s as the artist who would paint the former first couple's official White House portraits.

Shikler turned first to Jacqueline Kennedy. He worked on the portrait for several years. The final product showed her in a floor-length peach gown. She stands in front of a fireplace and looks off into the distance. "I tried to show her inner strength," Shikler told The Post.

For the president's pose, Shikler said he drew inspiration from a photograph of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), John Kennedy's younger brother, at the president's grave site.

"I painted him with his head bowed, not because I think of him as a martyr, but because I wanted to show him as a president who was a thinker," Shikler told The Post. "A thinking president is a rare thing."

Shikler was an Army Air Forces cartographer in Europe during World War II and later received bachelor's and master's degrees from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia.

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With David Levine, the caricaturist whose drawings were a mainstay of the New York Review of Books, Shikler founded the Painting Group, an association of New York artists who met regularly to work from live models.

Survivors include two children, Cathy Shikler-van Ingen and Clifford Shikler, both of New York City.