About Burma Modern Art

Burma Modern Art (BMA) is the principal archive and resource on the Peacock Gallery Circle—a central pillar of Myanmar’s modernist movement.  Over two decades, founder Chris Dodge collaborated closely in the U.S. with two of the movement's pioneers, Win Pe and Paw Thame.  Dodge conducted extensive biographical interviews with both artists and maintained an extensive email correspondence with Paw Thame. Working alongside editor Ma Thanegi, Dodge produced Paw Thame’s memoir, I Am Cadmium Red. Today, with Curator Orn Eckley, BMA places important archival works into institutional and private collections worldwide.

We maintain a comprehensive archive of early and U.S.-period works acquired directly from the artists. Because of this direct provenance, works documented by BMA carry clear historical provenance and institutional quality.

The market for Myanmar’s modern masters is seeing growing institutional recognition across Asia. BMA’s current focus centers on placing key works with North American museums and private collectors. This direction honors the legacy of Win Pe and Paw Thame, who both developed critical bodies of work as American citizens.

BMA provides long-term advisory to a select group of private collectors. We partner with clients to build museum-grade collections designed to be studied, preserved, and positioned for long-term legacy. 

From the outset, BMA has worked to document the history and biographies of these artists.  We draw our inspiration from Leo Castelli’s early championing of postwar American art—recognizing a comparable historical emergence today for Myanmar’s modernists and the Peacock Gallery Circle.