''View'' was an American literary and art magazine published from 1940 to 1947 by artist and writer Charles Henri Ford, and writer and film critic

Parker Tyler Harrison Parker Tyler (March 6, 1904 – June 1974), was an American author, poet, and film critic. Tyler had a relationship with underground filmmaker Charles Boultenhouse (1926–1994) from 1945 until his death. Their papers are held by the New ...

. The magazine is best known for introducing

Surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

to the American public.Ford, Charles Henri (editor), ''View: Parade of the Avant-Garde'', Thunder's Mouth Press, 1991. The magazine was headquartered in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The magazine covered the contemporary avant-garde and Surrealist scene, and was published quarterly as finances permitted until 1947. ''View'' featured cover designs by renowned artists with the highly stylised typography of Tyler along with their art, and the prose and poetry of the day. Many of the contributors had been living in Europe, but took refuge in the U.S. during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

bringing with them the avant-garde ideas of the time and precipitating a shift of the center of the art world from Paris to New York. It attracted contributions from writers like

Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...

, an interview with whom was featured in the first number of ''View'', William Carlos Williams, Joseph Cornell, Edouard Roditi,

Henry Miller Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi- autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical re ...

, Lawrence Durrell,

Paul Bowles Paul Frederic Bowles (; December 30, 1910November 18, 1999) was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. He became associated with the Moroccan city of Tangier, where he settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years to the end of his ...

Brion Gysin Brion Gysin (19 January 1916 – 13 July 1986) was a British-Canadian painter, writer, sound poet, performance artist and inventor of experimental devices. He is best known for his use of the cut-up technique, alongside his close friend, the ...

, Philip Lamantia, Paul Goodman, Marshall McLuhan, André Breton, Raymond Roussel,

Albert Camus Albert Camus ( , ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, and journalist. He was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the second-youngest recipient in history. His work ...

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and lite ...

, Jean Genet or

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known b ...

and artists like

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented ...

, Fernand Léger, Georgia O'Keeffe,

Man Ray Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, although his t ...

, Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, Isamu Noguchi, Marc Chagall, René Magritte and

Jean Dubuffet Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (31 July 1901 – 12 May 1985) was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a ...

(''Surrealism in Belgium'', Dec. 1946). Max Ernst (April 1942), the '' Yves Tanguy

Pavel Tchelitchew Pavel Fyodorovich Tchelitchew ( ; russian: Па́вел Фёдорович Чели́щев) ( – 31 July 1957) was a Russian-born surrealist painter, set designer and costume designer. Early life Tchelitchew was born to an aristocratic famil ...

'' number with

Nicolas Calas Nicolas Calas ( el, Νικόλαος Κάλας) (May 27, 1907 – December 31, 1988) was the pseudonym of Nikos Kalamaris (), a Greek-American poet and art critic. While living in Greece, he also used the pseudonyms Nikitas Randos () and M. ...

Benjamin Péret Benjamin Péret (4 July 1899 – 18 September 1959) was a French poet, Parisian Dadaist and a founder and central member of the French Surrealist movement with his avid use of Surrealist automatism. Biography Benjamin Péret was born in Rezé, ...

Kurt Seligmann Kurt Leopold Seligmann (1900–1962) was a Swiss-American Surrealist painter and engraver. He was known for his fantastic imagery of medieval troubadors and knights in macabre rituals and inspired by the carnival held annually in his native ...

James Johnson Sweeney James Johnson Sweeney (1900–1986) was an American curator, and writer about modern art. Sweeney graduated from Georgetown University in 1922. From 1935 to 1946, he was curator for the Museum of Modern Art. He was the second director of the Solo ...

, Harold Rosenberg and Charles Henri Ford on Tanguy, Parker Tyler, Lincoln Kirstein and others on Tchelitchew (May 1942) and

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

, with an essay by André Breton, (March 1945) all got special numbers of the magazine. The earlier ''

'' special (View 7-8, 1941) had featured

Artaud Antoine Marie Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud (; 4 September 1896 – 4 March 1948), was a French writer, poet, dramatist, visual artist, essayist, actor and theatre director. He is widely recognized as a major figure of the E ...

, Victor Brauner, Leonora Carrington, Marcel Duchamp and André Masson. There was an ''Americana Fantastica'' number (January 1943) and, edited by Paul Bowles the ''Tropical Americana'' issue on Mexico.Charles Henri Ford
{{webarchive , url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061210112915/http://www.milkmag.org/fordpage.htm , date=December 10, 2006 " memorial article, ''Milk'' magazine, Volume 8 (publication date unclear), Retrieved January 4, 2007 In the 1940s, View Editions, the associated publishing house, came out with the first monograph on Marcel Duchamp and the first book translations of André Breton's poems.

References

External links

"American Surrealism and ''View'' Magazine"
- an essay by Andrew Otwell, 1996
"Documents of Dada and Surrealism: Dada and Surrealist Journals in the Mary Reynolds Collection"
- Art Institute of Chicago Visual arts magazines published in the United States Defunct literary magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 1940 Magazines disestablished in 1947 Surrealist magazines Magazines published in New York City

See also

References

External links