Paw Oo Thet

(1936-1993)

Pagan

Footnotes

Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist in 1971
Private Collection of Professor Josef Silverstein (1922-2021) and Marilyn Cooper Silverstein (1930-2021)
Thence by descent to the present owner

Paw Oo Thet
蒲甘

簽名（右下）
油彩畫布

來源
藏家直接購自藝術家本人
Josef Silverstein教授和Marilyn Cooper Silverstein私人收藏
現藏家繼承自上述來源

Professor Josef Silverstein (1922-2021) and his wife Mrs Marilyn Cooper Silverstein (1930-2021) began collecting works of art on their first visit to Burma¹ as a young academic couple in 1955. They went on to become good friends and supporters of three leading artists in Myanmar's modern art movement in the 1960s: Paw Oo Thet (1936-1993), Win Pe (b. 1935), and Aung Khin (1921-1996). The Silverstein Collection contains these artists' early works, which are rarely seen at auction.

A renowned Myanmar expert, Professor Silverstein devoted his career as a scholar to Myanmar before retiring as a Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA. He authored and edited several influential books on Myanmar, including The Political Legacy of Aung San; Burmese Politics: The Dilemma of National Unity; and Burma: Military Rule on the Politics of Stagnation. The Josef Silverstein Papers (1944-2002), his professional papers and research collection, are now housed in Cornell University's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections in Ithaca, New York.

Between 1970 and 1972, Professor Silverstein served as the third director of Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, now known as ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute. He laid the foundations for the Institute and worked closely with Dr Goh Keng Swee and David Marshall to establish the Institute as one of the first Southeast Asian research centres dedicated to the study of the region. 

Lot 13

Born in 1936 in Mandalay, Paw Oo Thet was one of the major artists of 20th-century Myanmar. At the age of twelve, he lost his right hand because of a bomb explosion, and the tragic incident rendered him a left-handed painter. Paw Oo Thet studied under Ba Thet and Kin Maung (Bank), two key figures in introducing Western art to Myanmar. In addition, he took correspondence courses from the Famous Artists School of the United States in 1959, and as a result, his painting style was also influenced by the American artists Dong Kingman and Norman Rockwell. In November 1963, the Burma-America Institute in Yangon sponsored his first solo show—a ground-breaking exhibition that has long been considered the pivotal catalyst for Myanmar's modernist movement of the 1960s.

The Silversteins first met Paw Oo Thet in the early 1960s when Professor Josef Silverstein was teaching at the University of Mandalay as a Fulbright Lecturer. After the 1962 coup that brought to power Ne Win's socialist-military government, the Silversteins were only permitted to make short and infrequent visits to Burma (Myanmar). Pagan was acquired directly from the artist in 1971 during their return visit to the country. On these rare trips, the Silversteins would often smuggle consumer items no longer available in local shops but essential resources for creative production; for example, they brought Paw Oo Thet Grumbacher Academy watercolours paints.

Paw Oo Thet's practice, often conveying a sense of profound spirituality, draws considerable inspiration from his homeland's religious heritage. It is no surprise that the presence of the sacred site of Pagan (Bagan)—home to thousands of stupas—is keenly felt in his oeuvre. The meticulous geometric configurations of Pagan, set on a horizontal plane, are suggestive of features of cubist art. As Paw Oo Thet asserted in discussing his artistic approach: "Forms are necessary for the representation of truth." In Pagan, he has skilfully captured the glowing radiance of Pagan temples and their surroundings through semi-abstract forms and innovative uses of lines and colours. The compelling hybrid aesthetics of Pagan not only create a transcendental visual experience of the sublime, but also affirm Paw Oo Thet's status as Myanmar's seminal pioneer artist of the 20th century.