lit a candle 24 Sept 2026"Making movies was a great ride, but now I am happy to do what I love again." Read that in an obituary and just sat with it for a minute. Never saw Tone until a Thai cinema retrospective at my university, didn't understand a word without subtitles the first time through but the posters alone told you everything.
Their story
Somboonsuk Niyomsiri, known throughout Thailand as Piak Poster, was born on 18 October 1932 in Chiang Mai, then part of Siam. He grew up wanting to paint. His father was a soldier and hoped his son would follow a military path. After his father died, relatives tried to steer him…
Somboonsuk Niyomsiri, known throughout Thailand as Piak Poster, was born on 18 October 1932 in Chiang Mai, then part of Siam. He grew up wanting to paint. His father was a soldier and hoped his son would follow a military path. After his father died, relatives tried to steer him toward barracks work. He sat the exam as asked, then handed in a blank paper and left to become a painter.
He studied at Poh-Chang Academy of Arts in Bangkok, supporting himself with odd jobs that at one point included road labour. In the early 1950s, around age 17, he began painting commercial advertisements at Paiboon Karn Chang (also written Paibul/Phaiboon workshop), including product and fertiliser signs and magazine covers. A movie promoter who saw his work asked whether he could paint actors. He had never done so, but answered yes. His early cinema commissions included the film Pi Chai (Brother), starring Sor Assanachinda. Before cheap large-format printing was common, Thai cinemas relied on hand-painted plywood cut-outs and lobby murals several metres tall. Piak refined a vivid montage style that packed stars' faces and selling scenes into one sheet. He signed early posters simply "Piak," then became known as Piak Poster for his mastery of poster paint, a technique that set him apart from oil-based painters. Over decades he painted artwork for more than 1,000 films, Thai and foreign, including local icons such as Mitr Chaibancha and international faces from Rock Hudson and Kirk Douglas to Audrey Hepburn. Younger poster painters studied his approach.
In 1968 he helped launch the Thai cinema magazine Daraphap (Dara Phap), drawing on years spent visiting sets to photograph actors and gather poster research. He wrote a drawing column, Ngao Chittrakon. Fans of the magazine pressed the team to make a film. Piak agreed only if they left behind the 16 mm improvisation then common in Thailand and aimed for planned 35 mm production with sound on film. He trained at Daiei Film in Tokyo, learning storyboarding, camera-as-storyteller discipline, and lighting as narrative. He returned with the script and boards for Tone (1970), a drama about a poor temple boy's life in Bangkok. Without a major studio or top-tier casting, he worked with Chaiya Suriyan and Aranya Namwong. Tone opened at Chalerm Thai Cinema in August 1970, became a surprise commercial hit (Thai accounts cite roughly six million baht), and is widely treated as a milestone of Thailand's 35 mm surge. He followed it with Duang (1971) and Choo (The Adulterer, 1972), both now part of the classic Thai cinema canon. Choo, shot on location in the Andaman, staged a moral confrontation that Piak later described as a kind of anticlimax rare in Thai melodrama of the time.
He became known as a talent-maker as much as a director. Duang introduced Pairoj Jaisingha; Choo featured Krung Srivilai; Wai Olawon (1976), a teen romance built from his niece's experience and marketed to students when adult audiences dominated theatres, made overnight stars of Pairoj Sangworibut and Lalana Sulawan and sparked sequels and imitators. Later films launched or boosted Tun Hiranyasap, Ampol Lampoon, Ron Banjongsang, and others. Across roughly twenty-six years of directing he made on the order of twenty-nine features, among them Khao Saming, Khao Nok Na, Ngo Pa (co-directed, Suphannahong Best Film and Best Director), Khang Lang Phap (Behind the Painting), Saphan Rak Sarasin (Sarasin Bridge, Suphannahong cinematography honour), the art-school films Klin Si Lae Kao Paeng and its sequel, and his final directed feature Bin Laek (1995). He also served as second-unit director on the 2001 historical epic The Legend of Suriyothai.
Preservation was a second vocation. In 1984 he sat on the committee that established Thailand's National Film Archive and, on 10 September 1984, became its first donor of film reels, later giving documents and equipment as well. He received Golden Doll (Royal Surasawadi) recognition for Choo, lifetime and honorary awards from critics and the Thai Film Directors Association, and Bangkok Critics Assembly Best Supporting Actor for playing Uncle Thueang in The Billionaire (Top Secret: Wai Roon Pan Lan, 2011). In 2015 he was named a National Artist in Performing Arts (film and television). In 2017 he received the Order of the Direkgunabhorn, fourth class.
After leaving directing he sold his Bangkok house, moved with his wife to Pak Chong in Nakhon Ratchasima, painted portraits for clients from a studio he called his "throne," walked, and played tennis. He and his wife raised four children. He died peacefully of age-related causes at 1:15 p.m. on 24 September 2026, aged 93, twenty-four days short of his ninety-fourth birthday. Funeral rites were held at a Pak Chong practice centre in Nakhon Ratchasima. Thai cinema remembers him as the poster painter who taught the industry to plan a shot, the director who opened youth and location realism to mass audiences, and the first donor who helped a national archive keep the reels.
Biography adapted from English/Thai Wikipedia (Piak Poster / เปี๊ยก โปสเตอร์); Bangkok Post (Kong Rithdee, 19 Feb 2016; obituary 24 Sep 2026); The Nation Thailand; The Standard; The Thaiger; Thai PBS; Bangkok Insight. Socia. Wikipedia ↗
In their own words
“Making movies was a great ride, but now I am happy to do what I love again.”
Told to the Bangkok Post ahead of receiving his National Artist honour in 2015
“I call this 'my throne'. This is where I work, and I still work every day.”
Bangkok Post interview at his Pak Chong painting stool, February 2016, before National Artist recognition coverage.
“I'm not painting for fun or to relax. I have to earn some money too!”
Bangkok Post, 2016, on returning to portrait commissions after leaving directing.
“I wanted to paint since I was seven.”
Bangkok Post, 2016, describing his earliest vocation.
“He asked, 'Can you paint actors?' I never did it before but I was sure I could because it was just the picture of a person, so I said yes.”
Recalling the movie promoter who launched his cinema billboard career (Bangkok Post).
“The Japanese cameraman gave me a valuable lesson... He told me that the camera was the storyteller, and even the lighting in each scene was part of the storytelling.”
On his Daiei Film internship in Tokyo (Bangkok Post, 2016).
“Back then, movies were for adults, not schoolchildren. No one thought students would pay to see movies.”
On the wager behind Wai Olawon (Bangkok Post).
“I painted from the photographs of those people, they never sat for me!”
On painting Hollywood and Thai stars for cinema cut-outs (Bangkok Post).
Photos
8Pieak Poster (Somboonsuk Niyomsiri) with a lifetime-achievement award
by People Forever
Pieak Poster (Somboonsuk Niyomsiri) in later years
by People Forever
Pieak Poster with paintbrush
by People Forever
Piak Poster (Somboonsuk Niyomsiri) with paintbrush
by People Forever
that line is the whole man honestly