Benini is Alive and Well and Living in Evinston

Freeport News, 1978

By Richard Campbell

November 20, 1978, page 1 (The People Page)

Benini was born in Imola (northern Italy) in 1941. He showed very strong artistic abilities as far back as his elementary school years.

Throughout the years, Benini has practiced and painted with watercolors and tempera. three years in the Italian Army, Benini began to paint with oil colors in a “Post-Impressionist” technique. During this period, he created mostly landscapes and still-lifes bearing the influence of Cezanne, Pissarro and Morandi, the master from nearby Bologna.

Thirteen years ago, Benini left the “crowded” Italy to look for a “clean new place where I could take my mind off traffic, and pollution, and concentrate in creating.” He found it in beautiful Freeport /Lucaya where he lived up until a year ago. In November, 1977 Benini disappeared and has been globe trotting ever since.

Although he often returns to Grand Bahama to visit close friends, the majority of the population who only knew him as Benini. (He says they refer to him as “ The Great Benini”) may be pleased to know that he is alive and well living in Evinston.

Where is Evinston? That’s a small town in the United states lust outside of Micanopy, which is just outside of a number of small towns in Florida.

Just prior to leaving Freeport, Benini lived quietly in a lavish houseboat docked in a marina near Howard Hughes’ Xanadu Beach Hotel.

Today, believe it or not the Great Benini, now lives downtown Evinston, just across from the post office. One would tend to think that an artist might not be able to concentrate and create living “downtown”.

But, in the town where Benini now lives, everyone else who also lives in that town also lives downtown. The population is just under 100. The artist who considers himself a Freeporter at heart – or a Bahamian for that matter – resides in a six-story home he purchased last year. The structure was built about 100 years ago.

Although the exterior has remained untouched , as well as one room inside, the majority of the interior has been converted into modern décor. The walls in each are graced with paintings by himself and a few from other friend artists.

There are paintings everywhere.

In the kitchen. In the hall. In the smallish living room. It is Benini’s museum, his statement to himself more that anyone.

Benini’s canvases speak. They have voices and minds of their own. They tell stories, tales of love and death and vibrancy and nature. There are roses that are not really roses, but swirls of color and tone, pattern and light and shading. They are really designs of the mind, the inner Benini that rarely stays silent for long.

Although Benini the man is a maze of interests and contrasting experiences, he prefers to be seen in the light of his work rather than in the light of his own contributions in any conversation.

The “free and easy” life now lived by the artist, takes him from coast to coast in the United States – in his late model pickup truck.

And how has Benini adapted to the small town living in Evinston? Here’s an illustration.

When this writer visited him a few weeks back Benini spoke of a snake he had in his refrigerator. A dead snake that is – about four feet long. He said he was saving it for his neighbor who eats it.

“He eats snake?” I asked.

“Yes, You eat conch, don’t you?” he replied.

I answered affirmatively.

“Well just like you wouldn’t eat snake, he wouldn’t touch conch with a ten foot pole.” he ended.