Modigliani Gallery

• Pièce De Resistance
  

Selling printed works of art, naturally, to upmarket clientele, is Imtiyaz (Doray) Ahamat’s (46) business. Having set up his art gallery at the beginning of this month at Davidson Road, Bambalapitiya, he has made a Rs. 450,000 turnover in the first three weeks of business.
He cut his teeth in the gallery (the name given for the sale of printed art works) business in Abu Dhabi in 1984, first as a framer, before setting up his own gallery in this desert state 20 years later, that forms part of the UAE, only to see it go down, when the global financial crisis, led by the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, hit the world.
“I then had to start all over again,” Ahamat, who calls his gallery Modigliani, named after an Italian painter, a contemporary of Pablo Picasso, said.
In July of last year there was an exhibition at the BMICH in which I participated after paying the stall fee of Rs. 40,000; I ended up clinching a contract for Rs. 500,000; of having also to do the lay out and display of artwork prints, in a house in Pannipitiya belonging to a garment exporter.
“I participated in a similar exhibition in December and got more orders, but the drawback then was that I didn’t have a showroom, with a number of customers asking me to show them such.” But now Modigliani Gallery fills that void.
Ahamat gets his prints from the USA and Europe. He is the local agent for Editions Ltd., Los Angeles, an exporter of American artworks prints. His frames are from Italy and UK.
The Chinese may be able to copy anything under the sun, but not the gold and silver leafings that come with those frames from Italy and the UK, he said. That’s an art, passed down from generation to generation, of which only the British and the Italians are experts at, Ahamat said.
Before branching out on his own Ahamat worked for several galleries in Abu Dhabi for two decades, being headhunted along the way. He began at Posters, then at Spinners Picture Framing, Cornellian and finally in a gallery belonging to a sheikha.
“All these galleries except for the last were run by Britishers,” said Ahamat. At one time Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the UAE’s two major cities, and separated by a distance of some 100 miles, had 50,000 Britishers living in those two cities alone, now it must be more, he said.
“Our principal customers were the Europeans and Americans, with the Arabs comprising  a mere 5% of the customer base,” he said.
Hotel chains in the Middle East (ME), coupled with plush condominium complexes in the region have been bedecked with Ahamat’s selected print works.
Some limited edition prints, a range of which is available at Modigliani, are there for the discerning customer to make his pick.
He feels that he lost a US$ 500,000 contract to adorn the New Dubai Inter-Continental Hotel, to which he bid through his own company Art One, because a key decision maker, a Sri Lankan, didn’t like him.
“I was compelled to come down to Sri Lanka in 2005 due to the fact that I had an ailing mother,” said Ahamat who is married and living with his three children in his hometown Ragama. But a Sri Lankan friend of mine in Abu Dhabi persuaded me to open Art One whilst operating from Sri Lanka, he said.
“In fact one of the contracts I got, prior to leaving Abu Dhabi to Sri Lanka was a job equivalent to US$ 77,000 in Dirhams,” said Ahamat. It was a letter of credit (LC) valid for 60 days. Through the good offices of Dilruk Ranasinghe, now Director General Sri Lanka Export Credit Insurance Corporation, and Ms. Kala Mahendran, then a manager at Hatton National Bank Main Branch, I was able to import the necessary art works, by placing the LC as guarantee to obtain the required funds to import the art works and re-export it to my client, he said.
Ahamat  however has an abhorrence to “do” local paintings which he says are mainly originals with the local market being saturated with galleries, thus not giving him sufficient elbow room to cater to local artworks.
He said that the country’s import tax structure was not an impediment to his business.
“My regret is that I didn’t start this business in Sri Lanka earlier,” said Ahamat. The locals don’t bargain, but their seeming weakness are not wanting to share something good like Modigliani Gallery with their friends, fearing that the uniqueness of their household décor would be copied.
But what they seemingly don’t know is that Modigliani can reference thousands of different prints, an assurance that the uniqueness of an arrangement already done would remain.
Life is no bed of roses to Ahamat who has his showroom open from 10AM to 7PM, in addition to having to work on his picture frames and mounds at his workshop in Ragama. Typically his day starts at 4AM.
Modigliani Gallery occupies two floors. But Ahamat’s plans are to persuade his landlord to open the rooftop, which comprises the third floor of that building so that he could have a “Sheheradaze,” to cater to his Muslim clientele whose wants include Arabic Calligraphy, which Ahamat plans to import from the ME, and even from a place like Kashmir.