“Art is what flows through the soul of the people, where the old and the new meet. We cannot destroy all that is old, or accept all that is new. Nature will choose the good traditions out of the old, sincerity and truth out of the new. Not everything old is decadent, not everything new is revolutionary. We have to search for the soul in the old, and foster the progress of the new. […] We must sow the seeds of modern art, to weed, to fertilise; this is the artist’s responsibility towards the people.”
Bagyi Aung Soe. “The End of the End” in From Tradition to Modernity (Yangon: Khin May Si Sapay, 1978), 217-222.
In 2021, the Centre Pompidou held a major exhibition for Bagyi Aung Soe, Myanmar’s prolific trailblazer of modern art. Gajah Gallery is proud to launch the publication for this seminal show next month in Singapore, with the incredible support of Pierre & Bolor Lorinet.
The Burmese artist formed his artistic consciousness at Tagore’s historic art school in Santiniketan, India, before returning to Burma, where his work flourished with a rich mix of both Western and Eastern art forms. Throughout his four-decade long career, Aung Soe carved a rich, expansive and independent modernism in his art.
50 works from this exhibition were on loan from the personal collection of Gajah Gallery’s founder and director, Jasdeep Sandhu; and a curated selection of of works will be on show in Singapore.
Bagyi Aung Soe (1923 – 1990) will be available from 13 May 2023. Pre-order now on our webstore!