Back Bay developer builds art career to operatic heights

by Sandra Miller
Back Bay Sun

A collection of paintings in the upper floors of a Copley Square real estate office displays scenes full of sexuality and betrayal and murder. It’s like life ripped from the tabloids, or today’s soap operas, but these stories were told centuries before as entertainment.

“These stories are crazy,” said artist Nicholas Abraham. He says it a little too enthusiastically, until you realize that he is a rare breed of music lover: the opera fan. Abraham is happy to talk about his 30-piece series of 20-by-24-inch oil paintings, which opera aficionados will recognize as scenes from such classics as “Carmen,” “La Boheme,” “Madama Butterfly,” “La Traviata,” “Tosca,” and “Tristan and Isolde”.

He’s done portraits of performers like Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carrera and Placido Domingo, and composers such as Verdi, Puccini, and Wagner. But Abraham, 67, is not only an artist - he is a multi-millionaire real estate developer who came late to the art world.

He liked to draw when he was in school, but Abraham put that aside to build a career developing properties around Boston and New Hampshire, and raising a family. “I have wanted to paint since I was 8 years old, but being a father and husband, I wanted to send my kids to college,” he said.

At 60, Abraham bought a condo in Naples, Fla., and had some time on his hands. But when a bum knee ended his golfing hobby, he didn’t know what to do. His wife reminded him about how much he had always wanted to paint, and in the spring of 2002, he picked up some art supplies and taught himself how to paint. “I was really bad,” he said. “I thought it would be so easy.”

But he persevered, and studied impressionists such as Manet, Renoir and Degas, studying brush strokes and other techniques. He kept challenging himself, and eventually developed a style that’s compared to Matisse, Modigliani and Picasso.
Abraham is another kind of artist, too – a jazz musician who has toured the country playing drums. His musical curiosity eventually led to studying classical music, and then he was floored by the beauty and grandeur of an opera by Puccini.

“I said, ‘My God, that’s very moving,’” he said. It took him 10 years to truly understand opera, figuring out what he liked and didn’t like. He found he favored Italian operas. “They are romantic, and melodic,” he said. “They reach into my heart and bring tears to my eyes. It’s such a talent and gift. I appreciate it because I know how difficult it is to do something so exceptional.”

And when they say “Do what you love,” Abraham decided to paint what he loved. “It was easy for me to combine my love of opera and my love of art,” he said.

He started painting famous scenes from the world’s greatest operas, along with their composers and artists. Initial reviews by opera critics have lauded his work. “Abraham brings to the 20-by-24 linen canvas color, action, mood and a sense of excitement that conveys in its own right a sublime statement of what the artist feels,” said one reviewer at OperaOnline.us. “Its colors are vibrant; its characters, animated; its power, especially in ensemble, immense.”
He’s come a long way since his first painting, which, he said “looks like a child’s painting. I now see how I progressed, and I am amazed. I just stuck with it until I get it right.”

And when he thinks about it, he likens art to the world of real estate development. “Painting is not just an art, it’s a challenge. Commercially acceptable artists fall into a rut of painting what their customers want them to paint. All the great masters refused to fit into the mainstream. They weren’t even allowed to show their paintings in salons, because of their ‘deviant behavior,’” he said.

Like his painting career, Abraham started his real estate career with lots of elbow grease – literally. His father owned properties in Newton, and put young Abraham to work when he was 7, by pushing a hand-mower over the properties’ lawns. When he was 10, he graduated to helping maintain his father’s properties in Roxbury and Grove Hall, and later in Brookline. He began renting apartments and rose to managing construction sites. He had 16 years of experience before he went on his own in his early 20s.

One of his first properties was the Cushing Endicott House at 163 Marlborough St., a 10,000-square-foot mansion he converted to six units. He then developed 120 condos in New Hampshire, and in 1989, he bought the building his offices currently occupy on Boylston Street, during the height of the market then. “I bought it without telling my father. When he found out, he yelled at me, saying I’d lose my shirt; but I’m still in the building, and it has risen in value.”

Abraham took a career detour, as a trial lawyer for 20 years, while serving as the family business’ lawyer. His father took some of his money and invested it in property. When his father became seriously ill in 1986, Abraham retired as a lawyer and took over the properties his father managed.

He also owns several Stor-Gard self-storage units, the Wal-Mart shopping center in Walpole, and he is now developing warehouse units in Northborough and Franklin.
He owns and manages a half-million square feet of property in Massachusetts.
He and his wife raised two children, Annise and Nicko, whom he made sure also went to work for his business when they turned 7. Today, Nicko is the company’s president.
“The key to be successful in any enterprise is in the love of what you do,” said Abraham. “You should have fun and be good at it, and stick through it until its successful completion.”

When times get tough, including with the current economic situation, he quotes a Chinese proverb: “Fire is the test of gold. Adversity is the test of man.”
He added, “When you need to dig down deep inside of you to bring out a successful results, it’s difficult. Sometimes, you don’t feel well but you have to dig down -- whether in marriage, bringing up children, success in real estate.” Or art.

He also works hard to keep his tenants happy, and has been known to rip up some leases for tenants who are struggling. “If they can’t get a loan in time, I’d return their deposit,” he said. “I’d rather give it back and say we’ll do another deal another time. Our goodwill we create is for a family business. I have children and grandchildren in this business and know how this will affect them in this business.”
He teaches his grandchildren about opera and art in his Cape Cod studio, using those vehicles to also teach about astronomy, math and other subjects. “They all want to be artists like their grandpa,” he said, beaming.

He wants the great opera houses to still be operating when his grandchildren grow old enough to appreciate it. His opera art will never be sold, he vows, but will go on tour to raise money for opera houses. “I didn’t paint these to make money for myself,” he said. The works will go on tour when he finishes his last two paintings, “Romeo and Juliet” and “Turandot” for a total of 32. “I’ll donate the use of the paintings for a month at a time, for exhibits, and for them to sell my cards, coasters and prints,” he said.

Limited edition museum quality prints are signed and numbered, and glossy coasters and tiles are available online through www.OperaArt.US.