Born in New York City, Willy Aractingi (b. 1930 - d. 2003, Lebanese) was quasi orphaned early in life. He grew up in Cairo and moved to Beirut, Lebanon in the late 1940’s where he practically abandons his art to take care of his family. A few years before the Lebanese civil war, he opened a modern art gallery exhibiting the likes of Fassianos, Niki De St Phalle and Alan Davies. Inspired, he starts sketching, then painting again. By the mid 1980’s, he was painting full time and in 1989 he started illustrating the 244 fables of French poet Jean de La Fontaine which he completed seven years later in 1995.

Best known for his use of colour, Aractingi was fascinated by stories, fables, and other tales told to children. In his paintings he depicts worlds inhabited by different creatures and animals bringing them to life with vibrant colours. He was in pursuit of creating his own aesthetic and humour and played with variations to obtain several versions of his propositions. Willy Aractingi described himself as a naive primitive artist. His style filled with colours and humour is often compared to the likes of Douanier Rousseau and Gauguin but with a quality considerably its own. His paintings reflect distinctive periods in his life. His early paintings are small, raw and innocent. His later work is more complex and bigger in size. His subjects reflect his environments and include not only the La Fontaine fables and tales but also his immediate surroundings. Landscapes from his trips to Chicago, Miami, Cairo, illustrations of Lebanese folkloric tales and representations inspired from his family life.

Willy has painted around 1500 paintings in his lifetime. Some of them are not dated however it is clear that he painted from 1973 till 1975 then stopped. He took up painting again in 1982 up until his death in 2003.