TOMI UNGERER (1931-2019) KISS FOR PEACE. 1967. 21x27 1/4 inches, 53 1/4x69 1/4 cm. Condition B+ / A-: small repaired tears, replaced losses, creases and abrasions at edges. During Ungerer's time in the U.S., he was an activist for many human rights issues, including opposition to racism and the war in Vietnam. Many of his strongest posters were widely distributed by Unicorn Press, a company he founded with his friend Richard Kosak. These images had an important impact on the public (so much so that Ungerer had to flee to Canada in 1971). This image, as with many of his others, is an unsettling balance of humor and outrage, in which a soldier is forcing a Vietnamese person to perform profane acts upon the personification of one of America's greatest monuments. Ungerer p. 20, Ungerer / Strasbourg p. 172.
