Aung Khin ( my, အောင်ခင် , 13 February 1921 – 14 May 1996) was a Burmese painter who became prominent in the

Mandalay Mandalay ( or ; ) is the second-largest city in Myanmar, after Yangon. Located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, 631km (392 miles) (Road Distance) north of Yangon, the city has a population of 1,225,553 (2014 census). Mandalay was fo ...

art world. He is well known as one of the foremost and earliest of modernistic painters in Burma.

Training, memberships, and associations

Aung Khin was born on 13 February 1921 in Nat Kyun Aung Myay village, Hsalingyi township, Monywa district, the youngest of seven children. His uncle and brothers ran a mixed art workshop, where he studied from the age of twelve. When he was sixteen, he moved to

Yangon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

to study for five years as an apprentice under the

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

-trained

Ba Nyan Ba Nyan ( my, ဘဉာဏ်, ; 1897 – 12 October 1945) was a Burmese painter who has been called the greatest name in modern painting in Myanmar. His oil paintings were quiet and academic in their style, but display occasional flashes of vi ...

, whose works were primarily in a naturalistic and realistic vein. In 1947 Aung Khin moved to

where he married Tin Tin Aye. He became active in the Mandalay Artist's Association, and eventually became Secretary and President of the association. In Mandalay, he became an associate of

Kin Maung Khin Maung (Bank) ( ; 1910 – 20 December 1983) was a Burmese painter and sponsor of the arts who was influential in the art world of Mandalay, Myanmar. More importantly, however, he was the major force for the development of a modernistic mo ...

(Bank)., a well-known Mandalay artist who proselytized heavily for a modernistic movement in painting in Burma through sponsoring workshops and writing papers. In 1978 he and his daughter Cho Cho Aung, also a painter, set up the Panthu Sanda Children's Art Centre. In 1981 he was elected vice president of the Traditional Art Association, and in 1994 he was made patron of the Mandalay Artists Association. In 1996 he started the Yellow Art Gallery in Mandalay, named after Frank Spenlove-Spenlove's Yellow Door School in London where Ba Nyan had studied. The Yellow Art Gallery is today run by his daughter Cho Cho Aung.

Early recognition

In 1952 Aung Khin won first prize for an oil painting in a USIS-sponsored All Burma Competition, and in 1960-61 he had several one-man shows in Mandalay and Yangon, one of which was sponsored by the Burma-America Institute.

Oeuvre

Aung Khin's work largely reflected the European influence of the colonial-era Burmese artists. This included

impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...

, what has been described as a ''conceptual

expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

'' and other forms of

abstract painting Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th ...

, including

cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

. However, he attempted to develop a uniquely Burmese style in his work, often rendering figures in his expressionist paintings with bold outlines and strong color contrast showing influence of the ancient mural painting of

Bagan Bagan (, ; formerly Pagan) is an ancient city and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Mandalay Region of Myanmar. From the 9th to 13th centuries, the city was the capital of the Bagan Kingdom, the first kingdom that unified the regions that wou ...

. One of his more intriguing explorations was using abstract non-figurative painting as a means to express

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

concepts beyond the earthly (difficultly-visualized) realm, or one might say life after death in

Brahmaloka Brahmaloka (Sanskrit: ब्रह्मालोक, IAST: Brahmāloka) or Satyaloka (Sanskrit: सत्यलोक) is the abode of Brahma, the creator god, a member of the Trimurti along with Vishnu and Shiva, along with his consort Saraswat ...

and

Devaloka In Indian religions, a devaloka or deva loka is a plane of existence where gods and devas exist. The deva lokas are usually described as places of eternal light and goodness, similar to the concept of Heaven. Teachers of different Hindu deno ...

, asking "How shall I draw the abode of Man and Deva?" His wife died in June 1994. After his wife died, perhaps realizing that his days left were numbered, he became extremely prolific, painting night and day. When he died, he left in the vicinity of 100 unsold paintings in his home in the care of his daughter Cho Cho Aung. His Buddhist paintings were among these last works. Aung Khin died on 14 May 1996.

Museum collections

Singapore Art Museum The Singapore Art Museum (Abbreviation: SAM) is an art museum is located in the Downtown Core district of Singapore. It is the first fully dedicated contemporary visual arts museum in Singapore with one of the world’s most important public co ...

Notes

Bibliography