Sitt Nyein Aye (, ; 24 April 1956 – 1 September 2023) was a Burmese artist. Sitt Nyein Aye came from a small village, near

Nyaung-U Township Nyaung-U Township is a township of Nyaung-U District in Mandalay Region of Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northw ...

Upper Myanmar Upper Myanmar ( or , also called Upper Burma) is one of two geographic regions in Myanmar, the other being Lower Myanmar. Located in the country's centre and north stretches, Upper Myanmar encompasses six inland states and regions, including M ...

.Christina Fink,
Living silence: Burma under military rule
'.

Zed Books Zed Books is a non-fiction publishing company based in London, UK. It was founded in 1977 under the name Zed Press by Roger van Zwanenberg. Zed publishes books for an international audience of both general and academic readers, covering areas ...

, 2001. . Pag
208
He was born Sein Aye () to Daw Than Swe and U Tun Pe. His parents were farmers with no money for education. Monks in the village monastery provided the resources needed for him to attend high school. He secretly studied

modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradit ...

but this was frowned upon by his teachers, being dubbed "mad art". He failed to achieve the top prize that would have allowed him to study abroad. Instead, he lived on the streets and sold artworks to passers-by. Sitt Nyein Aye spent two months in custody for sketching the ruins of a

student union A students' union or student union, is a student organization present in many colleges, universities, and high schools. In higher education, the students' union is often accorded its own building on the campus, dedicated to social, organizatio ...

that had been blown up by

Ne Win Ne Win (; ; 24 May 1911 – 5 December 2002), born Shu Maung (; ), was a Burmese army general, politician and Prime Minister of Burma from 1958 to 1960 and 1962 to 1974, and also President of Burma from 1962 to 1981. Ne Win was Burma's mili ...

in 1962. As a supporter of the pro-democracy movement in Burma, he had lived in exile in India.Exiled Artist paints for democracyreg.burma archiveOnline Burma/Myanmar Library
WWW Virtual Library, 17 December 1998. Originally called Sein Aye, he changed his name to Sitt Nyein Aye, which means ''

War and Peace ''War and Peace'' (; pre-reform Russian: ; ) is a literary work by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the work comprises both a fictional narrative and chapters in which Tolstoy discusses history and philosophy. An ...

'', after reading the novel by

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...

, in his twenties. Htein Lin, the Burmese painter and performance artist, studied under Sitt Nyein Aye. Earlier report said that Aye died on September 1, 2023.Myanmar Artist, Veteran Democracy Activist Sitt Nyein Aye Dies Aged 68
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References

1956 births 2023 deaths Burmese activists Burmese expatriates in India People from Mandalay Region 20th-century Burmese painters 21st-century painters {{Burma-bio-stub

See also

References