Series

Oral history interview with Farooq Hassan

• 2018-08-10 (Creation)

69.3 megabytes; 1 online resource (3 audio files (1 hr., 14 min., 53 sec.)) MPEG-4

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.

Joint copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society and The Immigrant Story. Use is allowed according to the following statement: In Copyright – Educational Use Permitted, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/

• English

Gift of The Immigrant Story, July 2020 (Lib. Acc. RL2020-018).

An article about Farooq Hassan, "A Lifetime Across Canvases" by Monica Salazar, was based on this interview and published on The Immigrant Story website at https://theimmigrantstory.org/canvas/.

Preferred citation: Oral history interview with Farooq Hassan, by Sankar Raman, SR 12282, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.

Finding aid based on DACS (Describing Archives: A Content Standard), 2nd Edition.

Sarah Stroman

• Iraq--History--1921-
• United States--Immigration and emigration
• Artists--Oregon
• Immigrants--Oregon
• Iraqi Americans--Oregon
• Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988
• Iraq War, 2003-2011

• Raman, Sankar (Contributor)
• Al Habeeb, Haifa (Subject)

• Interviews