[1] He began to study engineering at the University of Nebraska before he travelled around the Middle East and North Africa, which inspired him to become a painter.
After time in North Africa and Dominica, where he bought a coconut and lime plantation, he returned to the United States in 1932 following his father's death.
Through Ninas’ work as a teacher and as an active exhibiting artist, he introduced European modernist ideas to what had been hitherto a fairly traditional way of making art in the South.
Aside from the obvious comparisons to Gauguin, the later work of Ninas is a dialogue with Pablo Picasso and translating his synthetic Cubist style into distinctly Southern subjects.
Ninas especially sees New Orleans through a Cubist lens, depicting cemeteries, Mardi Gras parades and harbor scenes with angular, colorful flair.