Unconditional Surrender
The Kissing Statue
San Diego CA
2009
by Melissa

Real love stories have no ending

QUOTE: SWEET Love

Visit the Unconditional Surrender AKA “The Kissing Statue” along the downtown waterfront, next to the USS Midway. The 25-foot installation recreates the famous embrace between a sailor and a nurse celebrating the end of World War II in New York's Times Square in 1945.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_Surrender_(sculpture)

A copyright-free Victor Jorgensen photograph, held in government archives and cited by Seward Johnson as the source for Unconditional Surrender, only extends to just below the knees of the subjects, failing to show the unusual stance of the woman—that is shown fully in the iconic Alfred Eisenstaedt photograph—and that nonetheless, appears in the statues

V-J Day in Times Square is a photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt that portrays a U.S. Navy sailor embracing and kissing a total stranger—a dental assistant—on Victory over Japan Day ("V-J Day") in New York City's Times Square on August 14, 1945. The photograph was published a week later in Life magazine, among many photographs of celebrations around the United States that were presented in a 12-page section entitled "Victory Celebrations". A two-page spread faces a montage of three similar photographs of celebrators in Washington, D.C., Kansas City, and Miami, opposite the Eisenstaedt photograph that was given a full-page display on the right hand side.
Eisenstaedt was photographing a spontaneous event that occurred in Times Square during keen public anticipation of the announcement of the end of the war with Japan (that would be made by U.S. President Harry S. Truman at seven o'clock). Eisenstaedt said that he did not have an opportunity to get the names and details, because he was photographing rapidly changing events during the celebrations. The photograph does not clearly show the face of either person involved, and numerous people have claimed to be the subjects. The photograph was shot just south of 45th Street looking north from a location where Broadway and Seventh Avenue converge. Donald W. Olson and his investigative team estimate that the photograph was taken at 5:51 p.m. ET. In their history pages, Life has noted that the Eisenstaedt photograph was taken with a Leica IIIa camera.


Unconditional Surrender is a series of computer-generated statues by Seward Johnson that resemble an iconic 1945 photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt, V–J day in Times Square, but was said by Johnson to be based on a similar, less well-known, photograph by Victor Jorgensen that is in the public domain. The first in the series was installed temporarily in Sarasota, Florida, then was moved to San Diego, California and New York City. Other copies have been installed in Hamilton, New Jersey; Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; and Normandy, France. Johnson later identified the statue at exhibitions as "Embracing Peace" for the risqué double entendre when spoken.