[3] In 1969 he fled Iraq for France, and after arriving in Paris, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts where he studied figurative painting.

[4] In 1972, he created, with the actor Guy Jacquet and later the musician Fawzi Al Aiedy, Arabesque, a public performance combining music, poetry and live calligraphies projected on a screen.

In 1995, he was involved in the design of the stage set for the ballet "Selim" with the dancer Kader Belarbi from the Opera de Paris and the singer Houria Aichi on a choreography from Kalemenis.

The Tunisian street artist, el Seed, who uses calligraphy in his art, points to the work of Iraqi painter, Hassan Massoudy as a major source of inspiration, noting that "The work of Hassan Massoudy was totally out of anything I’ve seen from the way he shapes the letters to the colors he uses.

One such work is Woman is a Ray of Divine Light painted in 1987, which is based on the words of a 13th-century Sufi poet, Rumi.