Aaron Shikler

Aaron Shikler was an American artist noted for portraits of American statesmen and celebrities like Jane Engelhard and Sister Parish.

Shikler was born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 18, 1922. He studied at the Tyler School of Art (Philadelphia), and at the Hans Hofmann School (New York).

Jacqueline Kennedy personally selected Shikler in 1970 to provide the posthumous character study of John F. Kennedy, Oil Portrait of John F. Kennedy, which serves as Kennedy's official White House portrait. He also painted the official White House portraits of first ladies Jacqueline Kennedy and Nancy Reagan, as well as portraits of the Kennedy children. and is represented in numerous public collections such as The Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the New Britain Museum of American Art, and the National Academy of Design.
[edit]Awards and honors

Aaron Shikler was elected a Centennial Fellow of Temple University in 1985, an Academician of the National Academy of Design in 1965 and an Associate of the National Academy of Design in 1962. Shikler received the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award in 1957 and the Thomas B. Clarke Prize in 1958, 1960, and 1961. In 1976, he received the State Department Traveling Grant, a Certificate of Honor at the Tyler School of Art and the Benjamin Altman Prize from the National Academy of Design.

Shikler died of kidney failure on November 12, 2015.