The roots of the Nahmad family are in Aleppo, Syria, where banker Hillel Nahmad lived until just after the second world war. Following anti-Jewish violence in 1947, he moved to Beirut, Lebanon, and when the situation there became difficult, he took his three sons, Joseph, Ezra and David, to Milan in the early 1960s. All three brothers ended up making a fortune from art. With the emergence of the Red Brigades terror group in the 1970s, Milan was perceived as too dangerous, and the family moved again. Joseph and Ezra headed for Monaco, and David to New York. Ezra and David both have sons named Helly, who run separate galleries with the same name—the Helly Nahmad Gallery. The London-based Helly Nahmad Gallery, in Cork Street, was established by Ezra’s son in 1998. New York’s Helly Nahmad Gallery, in Madison Avenue, is a separate company run by David’s son, who took over his father’s earlier Davlyn Gallery. The Nahmad galleries deal in virtually the same artists—the great names of European modernism from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries.