Sculpture of end-of-WWII kiss lands in Normandy

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,” an 8-meter (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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