VVV

VVV. A Surrealist journal edited by David Hare and published in New York, 1942–4, during which period it was a rallying point for the European Surrealists who had taken refuge from the Second World War in the USA. Two of these exiles, André Breton and Max Ernst, were editorial advisers to the journal, and they were joined from the second issue by Marcel Duchamp. There were only four issues in all: no. 1 appeared in June 1942, nos. 3 and 4 together in March 1943, and no. 4 in February 1944. The journal's subheading was ‘Poetry, Plastic Arts, Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology', and the title was explained by Breton as a reference to the words Victory, View, and Veil in a passage mentioning ‘Victory over the forces of regression', the ‘View around us’ and the ‘View inside us', and ‘the myth in process of formation beneath the VEIL of happenings’ (he also stresses the word ‘vow', but does not capitalize it, so it does not seem to be part of his formulation). VVV was carefully produced, but because of wartime conditions it was necessarily less luxurious than Minotaure, its predecessor as the main Surrealist journal. It continued Minotaure's practice of having specially commissioned covers: no. 1 was designed by Ernst; the double issue 2 and 3 by Duchamp (replacing Chagall who was originally scheduled to do it); and no. 4 by Matta.