Unconditional Surrender sculpture World War II ended kissing couple

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. The first in the series was installed temporarily in Sarasota, Florida.

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.

Seward Johnson manufactured a life-size bronze precursor to the huge statues of Unconditional Surrender using a computer copying technology that would be used for the entire series. A 25-feet-tall (7.6 m) styrofoam version of the statue was part of a temporary exhibition in Sarasota, Florida in 2005, at its bay front. The technology he used copies two-dimensional images in order to manufacture three-dimensional objects.