Farewell To A Master

By KYAW PHYO THA / YANGON

Myanmar said goodbye to one of its leading contemporary artists when U Kin Maung Yin lost a battle with throat cancer and passed away on June 10 at the age of 76.

Recognized as a leader in the first generation of Myanmar’s modern art movement along with U Win Pe and U Paw Oo Thet, U Kin Maung Yin is a legend in contemporary art today.

“All I know about art is that simplicity is perfection,” he once said, and indeed, many of his paintings are almost childlike in their simplicity. Still, his art features unexpected colors, unique styles and timeless flourishes that have become an inspiration to younger artists.

A self-taught painter, U Kin Maung Yin began painting in the 1960s but trained earlier as an architect, gaining an appreciation for form and color that would later influence his art.

Among his works, probably the most well-known are those from a portrait series of the pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, featuring mask-like faces and elongated forms inspired by the Italian modernist Amedeo Modigliani.

U Kin Maung Yin was known not just for his paintings but also for his monk-like devotion to art alone and a proclivity for a hermetic life of solitude. He lived alone in a one-room wooden house in northern Yangon, and is survived by no immediate family members.