San Win plays a significant role in Burmese art history as the first Myanmarese painter to embrace impressionism among the members of the early Rangoon School. Educated first under Martin Ward, the president of the Burma Art Club, San Win was later granted government sponsorship to study art at Goldsmiths College in London and Columbia University in America. He eventually returned to Myanmar in the mid-1950s, where he became the deputy minister of art education and was awarded the Wunna Kyaw Htin, the highest civil service honor in the land.

His painting Bagan presents an alluring vision of the ancient city of Bagan in Mandalay, once the seat of the mighty Pagan Empire. The painting’s inclusion of historica...