Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and Donald Dewar Statue - geograph

A statue of the Scottish politician

Donald Dewar Donald Campbell Dewar (21 August 1937 – 11 October 2000) was a Scottish politician who served as the inaugural First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Labour Party in Scotland from 1999 until his death in 2000. He previously served as ...

stands on

Buchanan Street Buchanan Street is one of the main shopping thoroughfares in Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland. It forms the central stretch of Glasgow's famous shopping district with a generally more upmarket range of shops than the neighbouring streets: ...

Glasgow city centre Glasgow City Centre is the central business district of Glasgow, Scotland. Is bounded by Saltmarket, High Street and Castle Street to the east, The River Clyde to the south and the M8 motorway to its west and north. Glasgow City Centre is comp ...

. The statue was unveiled on 7 May 2002 by the

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As modern pr ...

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...

. It was sculpted by Kenny Mackay. The statue is 9 feet in height. Dewar is depicted wearing spectacles and his "characteristic stoop and crumpled suit". The statue was unveiled on 7 May 2002 by the

in front of a crowd of several hundred people. At the unveiling of the statue Blair said that Dewar's " ... compassion, his fundamental decency and his deep sense of social justice defined his entire approach as a politician" and described him as a "transforming moderate". The former leader of

Scottish Labour Scottish Labour ( gd, Pàrtaidh Làbarach na h-Alba, sco, Scots Labour Pairty; officially the Scottish Labour Party) is a social democratic political party in Scotland. It is an autonomous section of the UK Labour Party. From their peak of ...

Wendy Alexander Wendy Alexander (born 27 June 1963) is a retired Scottish politician and the former Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Paisley North. She held various Scottish Government cabinet posts and was the Leader of the Labour Party in Scotland ...

, said that the statue was " ... magnificent, the setting and the angle of it ...It's wonderful but it's not what he was when he was at his most exhausted". The statue was taken down in October 2005 to be cleaned, and was re-erected on high plinth in December in an effort to protect it from vandalism.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dewar, Donald, statue 2002 establishments in Scotland 2002 sculptures Bronze sculptures in Scotland Statues of politicians Monuments and memorials in Glasgow Outdoor sculptures in Scotland Sculptures of men in the United Kingdom