(b Baghdad, 1914; d 1992). Iraqi painter. He won a scholarship to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, from which he graduated in 1938. On returning to Iraq he exhibited his work, and established and directed the department of painting and sculpture at the Institute of Fine Arts, Baghdad. He was influenced by a number of European movements, including Impressionism and Cubism, as well as by abstract art, but he also painted realistic scenes of life in Iraq. Between 1943 and 1946 he took part in the exhibitions of the Friends of the Arts Society in Baghdad, and in 1952 exhibited at the Ibn Sina Exhibition of Arab artists in Baghdad. In the 1950s he was president of the group of artists called The Pioneers (founded in 1950 as La Société Primitive), and was later succeeded in this position by his pupil Ismail Sheikhley (al-Chekhli; b 1924). This group held private exhibitions until 1962, the year in which Hassan withdrew from it. After the creation of the Iraqi republic in 1958 he worked on a mosaic mural with a nationalistic theme called the Celebration of Victory, located in Tiran Square, Baghdad. This mural reveals the influence on him of European works such as Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon (New York, MOMA). In the years 1962 and 1967 he held solo exhibitions, and in 1965 he showed with nine other Iraqi artists in Beirut. In 1967 he established a group called Al-Zawiya, with whom he exhibited; this group advocated the implementation of art to serve national causes. A retrospective exhibition of his work was organized by the Iraqi government in 1971. During the 1980s he reverted to an Impressionist technique.

• Hassan, Faik
  • Iraq
  • groups and movements
    • Fattah, Ismail