Issa Hanna Dabish

Some 20 works were housed in the Iraqi Center for the Arts (formerly the Saddam Center for the Arts), prior to the lootings of 2003. Twelve of these works have since been recovered are now on display at the Baghdad Museum of Modern Art.

In 1993, he emigrated to Canada to be with his son. In spite of his advanced age, he continued to paint, producing smaller works in pastels and aquarelle. He also taught painting to senior citizens and children out of a local gallery. He died in 2009, aged 90 years.

He received his early education at Rawdat Al-Chaldan and Al-Ma'muniya Primary School. He attended the Jaafari secondary school at the same time as he was teaching painting at the Eastern Middle School. His early art education was at the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad where he graduated in 1950 and later studied abroad at Syracuse University New York graduating in 1956.

He enrolled at the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad, graduating in 1950 and later studied at Syracuse University in New York, graduating in 1956 where he majored in photography and commercial art. He subsequently became the first Iraqi to teach silkscreen technique.

After completing his education, he worked for the Water Board, but later joined the Department of Antiquities, where he met the artist, Akram Shukri, who was the Director of the Antiquities’ Laboratory. Together with Akram Shukri, he was instrumental in forming the Society of Artists and Art Lovers, founded in 1941.

He remained very active in Iraq's arts community throughout his life. He served on the inaugural board of the Society for Artists and Art Lovers, formed in 1941, as its treasurer. He was a founding member of the Primitive Artists Group in 1950, and also a foundation member of Iraqi Plastic Artists’ Society, formed in 1956. He was appointed the lifetime honorary chairman of the Iraqi Artists Association. He was also the chairman of the International Chaldean Artists’ Association.

Issa Hanna Dabish (1919-2006), simply known as Issa Hanna, was an Iraqi artist and restorer of antiquities, noted for silkscreen works. Along with Akram Sukri, he was instrumental in founding Iraq's first modern art association in 1941.

Issa Hanna Dabish was born in Telkaif, an Assyrian town in northern Iraq, in 1919. At around the age of five or six, the young Issa Hanna, emigrated to Baghdad with his family after locusts ravaged the family's crops.