KARACHI: Eminent art critic Dr S. Akbar Naqvi passed away here on Sunday. He was 85. He leaves behind his wife, two daughters and a son.

Dr Naqvi was born on Feb 21, 1931, in Hajipur, Bihar, India. He did his master’s in English literature from the Patna University where he also taught for a brief period.

He obtained a PhD in English literature from the University of Liverpool.

As a young man, he tried his hand at the art of painting but discovered that he was more inclined towards the critical and not the creative side of the subject.

Although his critical essays on art in Pakistan started to appear in magazines and journals early on in his career, Dr Naqvi’s first major contribution in the form of a book — Image and Identity: Fifty Years of Painting and Sculpture in Pakistan — came out in 1997.

A year later, he published a textbook titled Pakistan: The Making of Art. It covers the world of art from the Stone Age to the 1980s.

Then came Shahid Sajjad’s Sculptures: Collected Essays in 2007. A collection of biographical essays Khujwa Recollected was published in 2011.

Sense and Insanity on the works of artist Shahid Rassam came out this year. His last book Glass Lamp is yet to see the light of day.

Giving an interview to this newspaper five years ago, Dr Naqvi said he developed a passion for studying art at the age of 12. In those days, the Illustrated Weekly of India used to place prints of paintings of modern Indian painters. Once they distributed M.F. Husain’s captivating paintings of a horse executed in bold strokes which fascinated Dr Naqvi and left a lasting impression on him.

Dr Naqvi’s funeral prayers will be held on Tuesday after Zuhr prayers at Imambargah Yasrab, Defence Society. He will be laid to rest in the Gizri graveyard.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2016