Francisco Benitez has been working extensively in the Pompeii area for years and has studied and reinterpreted many aspects of ancient Greek and Roman painting, including encaustic and fresco technique. He has worked as a kind of art historical archaeologist, drawing connections between the remote past and the existential angst of modern culture and civilization. Benítez has studied the “virtual reconstructions” of famous paintings which Romans commissioned for the frescoes of their own houses, and attempts to reproduce the ancient view of painting, by starting with visible and moving to a moral expression of the soul.

Benitez received his Bachelor of Fine Arts, Department of Art & History, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico.  He continued his academic studies in art at the Facultad de Bellas Artes, Universidad de Granada, Spain, the New York University, Dept. of Art History, an the Art Student’s League, New York.

The work of Francisco Benitez has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions in the United States, France and Italy.  He is in the permenant public collections of: the National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico; New Mexico State Legislature; and Conseil Général de l’Aveyron, France.  His work is collected internationally by collectors in the United States, France, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Mexico and United Kingdom.