Mrs. Kennedy’s Portrait Still Controversial : Artist Who Painted Jackie to Do Reagans

WASHINGTON — New York artist Aaron Shikler, whose painting of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis hangs in the White House, has been commissioned to paint the portraits of President and Mrs. Reagan.

Elaine Crispen, the First Lady’s press secretary, said Nancy Reagan has already posed for Shikler in the White House, wearing a formal red gown, and the full-length portrait is nearly finished.

Shikler will also be working in oils on a portrait of Reagan before the President leaves office in January.

The paintings will cost a total of $100,000 with the White House Historical Assn. paying $40,000 for the two portraits and an anonymous donor paying the remaining $60,000.

The historical association had urged the Reagans to have their portraits completed before they leave the White House in order to convey the ambiance of the Reagan presidency.

Crispen was unable to say when the portraits will be hung in the White House, but the unveiling probably will not occur until after Jan. 20, when Reagan’s term of office expires.

Shikler’s painting of Jacqueline Onassis was controversial and to this day receives mixed reviews. In the full-length portrait, the former First Lady wears a filmy peach gown against a brown background, giving her an eerie, unreal effect.

The portrait was hung in the White House during the Nixon era, and Jackie Onassis was secretly invited to the mansion by President and Mrs. Nixon to see the painting, which hangs with other First Lady portraits on the ground floor.

It was the first time that Jackie Onassis had returned to the White House since the assassination of her first husband, John F. Kennedy. She dined with the Nixons and brought along her two children, Caroline and John Kennedy Jr., and only after she had departed did the White House confirm that she had been there.