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.
J.J. Hilder was a virtuoso watercolorist (deserving more credit than he has yet received) applying the British style to capture the sandy-brown landscapes of Australia.
[3] A limited number of Saya Saung's landscape works emerged on the art market in Burma in the 1990s and sold off quickly to collectors.
During this same period and into the years after 2000, many other paintings surfaced in the UK, corroborating claims that Saya Saung's work sold well to British colonials.
[11] One painting, Water Lilies, of the Mandalay Palace moat, which was done at least three times, may be regarded as one of Saung's outstanding pieces and hints that he may also have known the works of Monet.
[12] Not all the works found in the UK conform to the expectations of a painter influenced by J.J. Hilder nor are all of them of a consistent style or of an exceptional quality.
Hla's work bears the stamp of his early training as a Traditional painter, with the subjects in somewhat stiff, mock postures of realism.
[10][15] Saya Saung was of royal blood,[1] perhaps partly accounting for another nickname in Burma “The Prince of Watercolor”,[1][3][9] a possible double-entendre which reflected both his family background and his skills as a watercolorist.
[15] His outdoor painting companions were Ngwe Gaing, San Win, Ohn Lwin and Bo Let Ya (an amateur painter who was a member of the Thirty Comrades).
[9] Saung was a notoriously heavy drinker who loved a party,[1][9][10] described as “prodigal” by G. Hla Maung, who also mentions that he was able to paint when inebriated.
[15] His drinking habits apparently caused his death at the early age of 52 or 53, when he collapsed during a night of alcoholic revelry, dancing with fellow painters.
In the pre-World War II years, this school of painting focused on transparent watercolor painting, often plein air and often of the iconic sites of Mandalay and Upper Burma, while in Rangoon the skills of oil painting and gouache began to develop under the tutelage and legacy of Ba Nyan, who like Ba Zaw had studied in London in the 1920s at the Royal College of Art (Ba Nyan spent eight years studying in England, however, and also studied at Frank Spenlove-Spenlove's Yellow Door School).
Countless painters in Burma studied under Saya Saung and were influenced directly by him or attempted to mimic his style from a distance.
[1][9][10][17] Ultimately, there was a reaction in Mandalay against this “Royal Academy” style, as it is sometimes called in Burma (i.e., British Watercolor School Painting).
Through Ba Thet and much more deeply through his close friend Kin Maung (Bank) (c. 1908–83), a modernist movement came to Mandalay in the 1960s which eschewed the old British tendency to depict heavily representational, iconic countryside scenes in transparent watercolor.
[18] This Mandalay movement began to challenge the Rangoon School, founded by Ba Nyan, and became a forefront in progressive, expressionistic painting.