Sculptor Robert Lee Dean attended the Jan. 16 rededication of the Douglas MacArthur sculpture with (from left) TMI Headmaster James A. Freeman.; Army Maj. Douglas McVey, (retired) commandant, Corps of Cadets; and Cadet Lt. Col. Nathan Overmeyer, battalion commander. Courtesy photo

After nearly 40 years, sculptor Robert Lee Dean returned to TMI – The Episcopal School of Texas for a ceremony rededicating his statue of the school’s best-known alumnus. He was present when the statue of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, class of 1897, was installed Sept. 15, 1969, and returned for the rededication that celebrated a recent restoration of the heroic bronze.

“I wouldn’t have missed it,” said Dean, who traveled to San Antonio for the occasion from his home in Arcadia, Okla. “After all, this was my first full-size statue.”

The statue is a realistic portrayal of the five-star General of the Army, who served as commander of Allied forces in the South Pacific and oversaw the postwar reconstruction of Japan. Like MacArthur, Dean is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy. After MacArthur’s death in 1966, the sculptor – who was just starting out as an artist – learned that a more established sculptor, Walter Hancock, already was working on a statue. So Dean contacted the general’s other alma mater and received a commission from TMI for a larger-than-life-size statue of this towering historical figure.

Dean and his family attended the dedication ceremony when it first was installed at TMI, on the school’s former Alamo Heights campus.

When TMI moved in 1989 to its present campus in northwest San Antonio, the MacArthur statue came along.

Asked what he thought of his statue’s condition, almost 40 years after its completion, Dean said, “After all that time, it looks very good It hasn’t changed much – which is more than you can say for the rest of us.”