Oral history interview with Farooq Hassan, 2018 August 10
Scope and Contents
This oral history interview with Farooq Hassan was conducted by Sankar Raman on August 10, 2018. The interview was recorded for The Immigrant Story, an organization that documents and archives the stories of immigrants and refugees in the United States. In this interview, Hassan discusses his early life in Basra, Iraq, including the history and culture of Iraq before 1958, and his early art education. He then talks about studying art at universities in Baghdad, Iraq, and Rome, Italy. He discusses returning to Iraq in 1980 and his experience during the Iran-Iraq War. He describes some of the atrocities of Saddam Hussein and how he managed to evade the militias. He also talks about his marriage to fellow artist Haifa Al Habeeb. Hassan discusses his artwork, including his influences and methods, and his career after the end of the Iran-Iraq War. He also talks about designing stamps for the Iraqi government and giving some of his works to the Iraq Museum. He describes his life after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Hassan and Raman discuss an exhibition of Hassan’s artwork planned for later in 2018. Hassan talks about his reasons for immigrating to the United States in 2010, and discusses his daughter and her family. Hassan talks about the materials he uses in his painting and drawing, the development of his art technique, and the loss of several of his paintings during the looting of the Iraq Museum in 2003. Hassan and Sankar look at some of Hassan’s artworks and discuss them. Hassan closes the interview by talking about his career as an artist in the Pacific Northwest.
Dates
- Creation: 2018 August 10
Creator
- From the Collection: Hassan, Farooq, 1939- (Interviewee, Person)
- From the Collection: Raman, Sankar (Interviewer, Person)
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research.
Extent
From the Collection: 69.3 Megabytes (1 online resource (3 audio files (1 hr., 14 min., 53 sec.))) : MPEG-4
Language of Materials
English
Repository Details
Part of the Oregon Historical Society Research Library Repository
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Portland OR 97205 United States
5033065204
5033065240
libreference@ohs.org