Many good books are published about Australian art, but few change the way we see and understand it. When Andrew Sayers’ ​Aboriginal Artists of the Nineteenth Century appeared in August 1994, it immediately did that, as the critic Bruce James was quick to recognise. In his arts round-up for the year, published in The Age, James observed that ‘a whole new field was created at a stroke’ by Sayers’ book. A little over twenty years later, its impact reverberates through general histories of Australian art, museum displays and exhibitions, and artistic practice. Unusually for Australian art history, the effects of this book have also been deeply personal. A careful, considered, study of drawings, rich in ideas, information and images, Aboriginal Artists retains its freshness and power.