Shikler studied at New York's High School of Music and Art; at the Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania, 1941-43; at the Tyler School of Fine Art of Temple University, Philadelphia, 1943-48, where he received B.F.A., B.S.Ed., and M.F.A. degrees; and at the Hans Hoffman School in New York, 1949-51. His work was first included in a group exhibition in 1948; his first one-person exhibition was presented by the Davis Galleries, New York, in 1953. Since that time his work has been regularly featured in gallery exhibitions, and at one-person shows mounted by, among others, the New Britain (Connecticut) Museum of American Art, 1964; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1970; and the Lyme Academy Art Gallery, Old Lyme, Connecticut, 1986
He was the recipient of a Louis Comfort Tiffany Award in 1957, and a United States Department of State Traveling Grant in 1976. Among his awards are those for works exhibited in Academy annuals: Thomas R. Proctor prizes in 1958 and 1960; the Thomas B. Clarke Prize, 1961; and an Altman prize in 1976. Shikler was elected to a three-year term on the Academy Council in 1970, and as second vice president of the Academy, continued to serve on the Council from 1973 to 1975.
Shikler draws and paints figure studies, and portraits in a clear, luminous style that is at once classic and appealing in its realism. His portraits of distinguished persons, among them President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy, Mrs. Lyndon Baines Johnson, Senator Abraham Ribicoff, and Mrs. Ronald Reagan have brought him considerable celebrity.
