KARACHI, Feb 18: A two-day art books fair opened at Unicorn Gallery on Saturday. The fair, founded by Seemah Niaz in 2011, has a worthy variety of books on art which are of interest not only to art connoisseurs and lovers, but can also be useful for the uninitiated.

A collection of Indian books is particularly worth taking note of. A book by legendary artist M.F. Husain titled ‘Let history cut across me without me’ is prominently placed. Not far away from it is a book in which Husain’s work has been turned into tapestries.

Then there is Som Prakash Verma’s ‘Interpreting Mughal painting’, which is an insightful work on the subject.

In the international section, apart from others, there’s a famous book, ‘Caravaggio’, by Manuel Jover. On local artists, most of the books written by critics like Akbar Naqvi and Marjorie Husain can be found.

‘The last of the Bohemians — Bashir Mirza,’ ‘The art of Colin David’ and ‘The sun blazes the colours through my window’ are some of Marjorie’s works, whereas Akbar Naqvi’s ‘Khujwa recollected’ and ‘Shahid Sajjad’s sculpture’ too make their presence felt.

An interesting book, ‘A children’s history of Sindh’, by Hamida Khuhro is also prominently placed.

The first day of the fair was marked by speeches delivered by art critics Anwar Mooraj and Marjorie Husain. Mr Mooraj read out some of his published articles on the topic, including one on how he became an art critic, while Ms Husain read from one of her books, ‘The sun blazes the colours through my window’. —Peerzada Salman