ABSTRACT
When I began researching the material for this book, my initial estimation was that the writing on Aboriginal art in the nineteenth century would easily fit into one chapter. The fact that it has not and that there is still a great body of unpublished work in the form of manuscripts, letters and collected papers on this subject presents an exciting range of possibilities for historians of Aboriginal art. It also presents a further challenge to those wishing to historicise the reception of Indigenous art as a continuum since first contact, determine how to acknowledge and work with other perspectives, sources of information and ways of knowing. Published accounts from first contact to the first exhibition titled Australian Aboriginal Art (1929) is just one aspect of a multifaceted history – there is a long way to go before the topic of Australian Aboriginal art history is exhausted.
