Les Années Folles: The Art of Paris in W1

You probably have a friend (or a weird uncle) who feels about history the way most teenage girls feel about Johnny Depp. You know, that social oddity in John-Lennon-rimmed glasses who would lovingly stroke the bricks of the Colosseum or march down the winding streets of the Montmartre, entranced by the prospect of stepping on the same cobblestones as Toulouse-Lautrec.

If you know which friend I’m talking about, send them to the Helly Nahmad gallery for Les Années Folles: Paris in the Twenties.

The gallery, a sombre, grey-walled space, is currently showcasing some of the biggest names in painting, from Kandinsky to Picasso. Here hangs a heavily-framed work by Magritte, La Saucisse Casquée (1929), with his unmistakeable taste of absurd humour (incidentally, almost a century before Family Guy went down this route). Here is Picasso’s 1922 creation, Femme en Blanc, which emits the painter’s unmistakeable chunky, angular style. Standing in the centre of the gallery feels surreal to the point of being like a poorly-told joke; the kind where someone goes to heaven and finds a whole bunch of famous dead people playing poker together.

The curator must be given a well-deserved nod of approval for selecting a geographical, instead of stylistic theme. The exhibition is so captivating, in part, because all paintings on display were created in the same place (Paris) and at the same time (1920s). The wide variety of styles and ideas is a fantastic illustration of the cultural and intellectual boom of post-war France. Meanwhile, the gallery’s décor ensures a dreamy, surreal ambience is created from the very entrance, where a colossal collage of images from the era coats the walls.

Although the exhibition is relatively small, its virtue lies in its variety. Here, anybody is bound to find something to their taste. Yves Tanguy’s dark, surrealist work is bound to appeal to fans of Dalí, who want a grungier tint to the bizarre, dream-like art movement of the Twenties. By contrast, the sharp abstract lines and minimalist use of colours in Joan Miró’s painting is likely to appeal to conceited critics and habitual drug users. You can just about make out a bird, or a dancer – but ultimately no amount of staring will generate a definitive conclusion about what is depicted.

Les Années Folles is a brief trip to another place in another time, without the cost of a train ticket, or the effort of building a flux capacitor. Although you are bound to find a wider, more famous selection in one of the major museums and galleries in the City, Helly Nahmad offers a small, private audience with some of the more avant-garde creative minds of last century.

Les Années Folles is showing until December 19, Monday to Friday 10am-6pm, at:

Helly Nahmad
2 Cork Street
W1S 3LB

Tel: 0207 494 3200