PERTH MUSEUM and Art Gallery is soon to hold a new exhibition showcasing a host of exciting exhibits added to the collection in the past year.

New Faces 2005 runs from January 5 until the end of March and features items of local interest.

The purchase of some of the pieces on show was made possible thanks to a successful grant aid application to the National Fund for Acquisitions.

However, the majority of works were bequeathed from a local estate and represent one of the most significant single source bequests in recent years.

The exhibition includes an important group of works relating to the 19th century Perth-born artist David Octavius Hill (1802-70).

Best remembered as the pioneer of photography in Scotland, Hill was also a gifted artist.

A group of four lifetime impressions of the distinctive Hill/Adamson sepia calotypes were secured at the start of the year from a private collection.

The prints were acquired by the family soon after they were made and having been kept in an album, have retained their freshness.

The group also includes portrait studies of fellow Perthshire artist Thomas Duncan (1807-45) and Sir Francis Grant (1803-78), as well as one of Hill himself.

A copy of the first joint venture between Hill and his elder brother Alexander —a book chronicling the opening of the Glasgow and Garnick Railway in 1831—is also included.

Published the following year, the book contains four full page plates by D. O. Hill.

Among the paintings on display is a portrait of General Robert Stuart of Annat, dated 1816. A self made man, the general had an eventful military career in India before retiring to establish an estate in the Carse.

The portrait is part of a wider collection of artefacts, including correspondence, which have been acquired.

Some of the archival material will be deposited in the district archive at the A. K. Bell Library.

The new additions also include original pen and ink drawings by D. Y. Cameron —one of Scotland’s key artists of the 20th century—and a group of choice paintings by leading 19th century Scottish artists such as Arthur Melville and Horatio McCulloch.

The museum and art gallery reopens on January 5 and is open Monday to Saturday from 10 am until 5 pm. Admission to the exhibition is free.