Wilshire Center

Sven Brasch was one of three Danish artists credited with revolutionizing graphic design in Denmark during a period known as the Goulash Years. (The exportation of goulash caused a 15 year period of Danish prosperity that ended with World War II.) The Goulash Years were in fact the Jazz Age, and Brasch’s work takes us back to a time when the world was intoxicated with the tango, bathtub gin and Louise Brooks bobs.

A resident of New York for two years who spent his student years in Munich and Paris, Brasch was quite the cosmopolitan dandy and there’s nothing particularly Danish about his work which incorporates elements of French poster design, Art Deco, and German Expressionism (his work is strongly reminiscent of Max Beckmann in particular). Favoring geometric forms, bold color, and broad areas of unprinted space, Brasch’s work is marked by a restrained elegance and a hint of naughtiness; this is graphic design for grown-ups.

Film and theater posters were Brasch’s speciality and many major American stars of the ‘20s are caricatured in the selection on view here, which explores a mythical world where flappers with bee-stung lips exchange dramatic soul kisses with dangerous rogues. As with work by the writer Dennis Potter, these images toy with our idealized notions of the past, and like the movies they advertise, play on our willingness to be enchanted. (Turner Dailey Gallery, 7220 Beverly Blvd., to Dec. 31.)