Artwork by Chawana
So far you've seen some of the work of Tongdee and Kham, two greats of the Thai poster art world. Now we're going to examine some posters painted by Chawana Boonchu.
Among the pantheon of Thai movie poster painters, Chawana often gets the most credit for his realism. His work has a slightly more professional quality to it than most of the other guys. It's not surprising then that in his post-poster days, he's gone on to become a well respected landscape artist.
From my many conversations with Thai poster collectors and dealers, I've been told that Chawana, unlike most of the other masters of poster art in Thailand, didn't have full-on studio staffed with bunch of students who would end up painting the minute details of each poster. Take Tongdee, for example. When Tongdee was commissioned for a poster, he usually only painted the main content, focusing specifically on the faces of the lead actors. All the crazy little details going on all around, the stuff that could cause one to go blind, was done by assistants.
Chawana, I'm told, painted every aspect of every poster he was commission for. The result is an amazing level of consistency, not to mention incredible artwork. Once you've become familiar with the work of Chawana, there is no mistaking it.
Above is a quintessential work by Chawana, the Thai adventure film Khao Yai, which I think is from 1978 or so. I've never seen the movie, but the poster makes it look pretty incredible.
Click on the images below to enlarge for detail.
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