The ways in which white artists have depicted Aboriginal people in their work since the beginning of the white settlement are closely related to the transforming relationship between Aborigines and white settlers. The emergence of Aboriginal themes in the mainstream of Australian painting in the 1950s is a continuation of this phenomenon. Aboriginal presence provided an unique national subject matter for early Australian artists at the beginning of colonial settlement. During the nineteenth-century, as white colonization progressed, however, Aboriginal themes and images gradually vanished from mainstream Australian painting. During the first half of the twentieth-century, Aboriginal presence appeared in the work of artists such as Margaret Preston who derived inspiration from designs and colours of traditional Aboriginal artefacts in an attempt to develop a national style, or social realist artists who depicted the condition of the wretched urban Aboriginal dwellers. By the late 1950s, Aboriginal presence as a subject matter had become visible in mainstream Australian painting. The most notable example was, Arthur Boyd's series, Love, Marriage, and Death of a Half-caste, which presented Chagallian dream-like imagery of the marginalized Aboriginal life in outback townships, This series was exhibited in Melbourne in 1958. Russell Drysdale produced a number of paintings featuring Aboriginal people in the outback landscape following his trip to northern Australia. The themes that underlie Arthur Boyd's series are the artist's moralist reflection upon human issues and his pursuit of Australian subject. In case of Russell Drysdale's landscapes with Aboriginal figures, the underlying theme is the artist's admiration of the integrity of the environment and the humans. In the discussion on Aboriginal presence in Australian painting in the 1950s, the Aboriginal watercolourist Albert Namatjira and his landscapes painted in the region around Hermannsburg mission play problematic roles. Namatjira's work has been given little importance in the context of the history of Australian 'high art' but rather attributed legendary values as a historical curiosity. Recently, over three decades after his death, Namatjira and his work are perceived somewhat differently from his life time. Namatjira's achievement has had important influence on Aboriginal art movement which emerged in the early 1970s. In the eyes of white artists, the Aborigines were inspirations and passive models for their painting. Namatjira was an active participant in making of Australian painting, and his role as a forerunner of today's Aboriginal artists should not be overlooked.