Ba Zaw

Who was Ba Zaw?

Ba Zaw was an early Burmese artist born in Tha Yet and raised in Mandalay who mastered Western painting. He and his student, Saya Saung, are largely responsible for creating the foundations and identity of a Western-style painting circle within the Mandalay School. The Mandalay School, when examined as a whole, included diverse artists—painters who devoted themselves to Western-style painting as well as professional Traditional Burmese painters whose specialty and livelihood came from painting Buddhist works for temples and other religious buildings. Almost all the Traditional painters dabbled in or heavily experimented in Western-style painting from time to time.