Saya Saung

Saya Saung (1898–1952) was an early Burmese watercolorist who adopted the Western style of painting and became famous in Burma for his landscape works. He is less known for his portraits, about seven of which have surfaced in recent years.

His title: Saya Saya Saung is the only early Western-style painter who has the honorific “Saya” (meaning master) automatically attached to his name, a title generally reserved for the painters of the Traditional School in Burma. In Saya Saung's case, the honorific may have attached to him because he was from Mandalay, the capital of the fallen Konbaung dynasty (1752–1885) and the heart of the Traditional arts, where artisans trained rigorously in apprenticeship systems working themselves up gradually to the status of master, or Saya. Saya Saung did not pass through such demanding and subservient rites of passage in his acquisition of talents in Western painting, but once he was recognized as possessing master-level skills, it would have been natural in the cloistered world of Mandalay for the title “Saya” to be applied to his name.

His Burmese teachers The painter who is invariably mentioned as Saya Saung's teacher is Ba Zaw (1891–1942).