I was sixteen years old in 1963, a teenager in Istanbul, the day I heard the news about John F. Kennedy’s assassination. I barely spoke English and I had no connection to the U.S. presidency or to the Kennedys, but the news made me cry – and the memory of that day is still with me decades later. Today, as a practicing psychiatrist in Washington, DC, I view myself not as a painter, but as a storyteller mesmerized by J.F.K. and his heroic legacy.

What is so great about J.F.K.?

Is President Kennedy’s intervention to prevent nuclear catastrophe during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 a testament to his greatness? How about his commitment to space exploration that culminated in landing the first man on the moon? Or his vision of altruistic engagement abroad that led to the creation of the Peace Corps?

Or his use of federal troops to precipitate an end to segregated college campuses? Do these acts embody greatness? Or his wisdom to order the withdrawal of military troops from Vietnam in 1963 initiating an end to our military engagement there? I believe that these actions, among his many outstanding contributions to peace and justice, constitute greatness.

Why do I paint JFK? Perhaps I am no more than a human amygdala and hippocampus – the brain repositories of human emotional memories – traveling on the shoulders of the former President, recording his journey.

And what a magnificent journey it has been! I feel privileged, through these paintings, to feel, touch, smell, inhale, exhale, and celebrate the life of a man with a dynamic mind, heart, and soul.

-Alen J. Salerian, M.D.