Paw Oo Thet (1936-1993) was a Burmese painter, prominent in the Mandalay art scene who became one of the initiators of a modernistic art movement in Burma in the early 1960s, producing vibrant works in both watercolor on paper and oil paintings on canvas. He studied under Ba Thet and Kin Maung (Bank) (c. 1908−83) to learn about modernistic, more abstract art trends with his close friends Khin Maung Yin and Win Pe.

He was born and lived most of his life in the old capital city of Mandalay, a city that had been devastated, and indeed almost razed to the ground, during the war years. He hardly had the best start in life as a future artist: at the age of 12 he picked up a hand-grenade left over from the war and it exploded, blowing off his right hand, which was his writing hand up till that time.

His work combined traditional subjects with more modern ones, like scenes from daily life; and similarly his paintings manage to combine traditional and modern techniques producing a style that is recognizably his own.