Jessie Benton Evans was named for her great grandmother, an early Arizona painter of impressionist landscapes, who came to the state in 1911 after living the first half of her life in Ohio , Chicago , and Europe . The great grandmother declared young Jessie to be an artist, and put a brush in her hand when she was barely old enough to hold it. Growing up in the desert near this influential, supportive artist relative, Evans learned to see nature as art and to paint directly from life.

Born and raised in Arizona , Evans received a B.A. degree in Art and English from Arizona State University and an M.A. in both subjects from the University of Iowa .

After college, she and her husband, artist Don Gray, moved to New York City in the 1960's, where they exhibited their paintings, produced and moderated programs on the arts for Manhattan Cable Television and wrote for various arts publications. They lived there for five and one-half years, then moved sixty miles north of the city to a farm for the next twenty years. They returned to Arizona and the southwest ten years ago.

Evans's paintings are in the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington , DC and many private collections.

Capsule reviews of Jessie Benton Evans' art include: Artist Elaine de Kooning: "She would be on my list of 'Ten Best American Women Artists.'" Art in America : "They are overwhelmingly powerful pictures." The New York Times: "One function of art is to expand, rather than merely reiterate human experience Evans's art rings true." The Christian Science Monitor: "Art that is visionary, ecstatic, highly romantic. Even Van Gogh would have been surprised at (her paintings') breadth of execution."