AN EXHIBITION chronicling the life and works of an elusive Scots artist opens in St Andrews on Saturday.

Curated by postgraduate students on the St Andrews University museum and gallery studies course, the exhibition in the Gateway Galleries profiles James Watterston Herald, of Angus.

Students had appealed for help in gathering information about him after a significant archive of his sketchbooks, small prints and correspondence was donated to the university’s museum collection. As he was intensely shy, the archive contained little information about his life.

However, the students were inundated with replies and artwork which will go on show has also been borrowed from art galleries and private collectors.

A spokesman for the students said, “Herald remains an elusive within Scottish art, despite being highly regarded within art circles.

“This exhibition aims to introduce Herald to a new audience in the area which so inspired him and establish his place within Scottish art.”

Herald was born in Forfar in 1859 and educated at West Primary School and Forfar Academy before enrolling at Dundee High School.

After working in a factory office in Forfar and as an apprentice decorator in Dundee, Herald decided to become a professional painter and in 1884 moved to Edinburgh where his paintings were exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy.

Herald was inspired by the landscape of Angus and continued to paint it until his death in 1914.