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The Alfred Eisenstaedt photograph that inspired the Seward Johnson's 'Unconditional Surrender' sculpture. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com archive and Westlicht Photographica Auctions.

WWII sailor kissing nurse sculpture lands in Normandy

Tom Hoepf
Tom Hoepf

The Alfred Eisenstaedt photograph that inspired the Seward Johnson's 'Unconditional Surrender' sculpture. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com archive and Westlicht Photographica Auctions.
The Alfred Eisenstaedt photograph that inspired the Seward Johnson’s ‘Unconditional Surrender’ sculpture. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com archive and Westlicht Photographica Auctions.
CAEN, France (AP) – A sculpture honoring a photograph of a kiss in Times Square that captured New York’s celebration as World War II ended has gone up in Normandy for a one-year visit.

Cranes and construction crews in the French city of Caen on Tuesday hoisted and locked together pieces of Unconditional Surrender, a 25-foot cast-bronze sculpture in color of a sailor and a nurse in a lip-locked embrace.

The sculpture by Seward Johnson is based on a U.S. Navy photographer’s black-and-white snapshot taken Aug. 15, 1945, according to the Sculpture Foundation, a U.S.-based nonprofit that owns the work. It also resembles a famous photo taken by Life magazine’s Alfred Eisenstaedt on that day.

The sculpture is to spend a year outside the Caen Memorial, a museum focusing on World War II.

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AP-WF-09-23-14 1930GMT

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

The Alfred Eisenstaedt photograph that inspired the Seward Johnson's 'Unconditional Surrender' sculpture. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com archive and Westlicht Photographica Auctions.
The Alfred Eisenstaedt photograph that inspired the Seward Johnson’s ‘Unconditional Surrender’ sculpture. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com archive and Westlicht Photographica Auctions.