Arts Rutherglen installed a tribute to the region's most famous artist, Tommy McRae, also known by his traditional name, Yakadun at Lake King.

Kwat Kwat Yorta Yorta woman and McRae's great-great-granddaughter Jean Morgan visited Rutherglen at the weekend, with her children, mother and cousins, to attend the opening celebration of the tribute.

"I'm very proud and I'm very honoured to be here," she said.

"We didn't think anybody knew about Tommy, let alone to honour him."

The tribute is a three dimensional realisation of one of Yakadun's pen and ink drawings, which is accompanied by an information board that gives examples of his work, explains his life story and his significance in art and local history.

Ms Morgan said Yakadun was an artist and entrepreneur who was found drawing in the dirt, but when given pen and paper was able to use the materials to make a living, something quite unusual for an Aboriginal man in the early 1900's.

IN OTHER NEWS:

"It's all very good for people to come along and celebrate him and everything, but for us, we don't have anything," she said.

"And I love this, I mean we're seeing something and I really appreciate Rutherglen Arts people and Ro for putting it on and all that, but it's a bit sad.

"This is bittersweet."

Arts Rutherglen's Ro Porter, to whom Ms Morgan reffered, was the instigator behind the tribute.

She said the tribute was a good way of bringing his story to the community to help people understand Australia's colonial history.

"What was amazing about him was that he was drawing in the style of western figures and First Nations people weren't known for drawing those relatively western style things," she said.

"He understood how to exist within the dual systems and he had managed to convince people that there was a piece of land out at Lake Moodemere and that was given to him and his family to live.

"He earned money by selling his drawings, hunting, fishing, he used to organise Corroborees; his wife (Lily) was really good, she made possum skin cloaks and things like that, so he was able to generate money, which was pretty amazing and that gave him standing in the community.

"He became a very respected person within his own people too, like he was known around Victoria and southern NSW by other First Nations people and they would often stop off where he was and they would discuss things, like how to deal with the protectorate."

Ms Porter said though Yakadun's story was amazing and incredible, it was also tragic.

"Because it wasn't enough," she said.

"He was refused permission to build a house even though he had enough money to build a house.

"But the really worst injustice was that he and Lily were considered unfit to look after their children; he had four children, one died early and another one died later on, but the two children that survived were removed.

"So all the respect in the world amounts to nothing when that happens to you."

Ms Morgan said the stolen generations made it "very hard" for family history to be passed on and for her to learn about her great-great-grandfather.

"Because it's all oral history and drawings and things like that, it's very hard and that doesn't go away, there's dysfunction," she said.

"My brother has always had a hard time with the law and everything and because Mum's always sad it does make it hard when families are split up and disconnected and moved from one place to another.

"That's what they were doing back then was moving people from one place to another and taking their language off them."

But Ms Morgan said the stealing didn't stop there.

"It's very sad that Tommy's children were taken away from him and then that sort of continued because I was stolen, my brothers and myself, Nan was in the home, she was in the Salvation Army girls home for a bit," she said.

"And I want to know more about my great-great-grandmother Lily who is supposedly buried beside him at Carlyle cemetery.

"I'd like to know what happened to all the other Aborignal people that were around the area and my family don't have any of his artwork, we haven't got anything and it would be good to get some of that back to our family, just something that we can pass on to our children as well.

"But I'm very proud and I'm glad that all my children are coming, my daughter's coming up and I've got my son here, that's something for them to take away with them."

Ms Morgan said she wanted people who viewed the tribute to know that Aboriginal people had been there.

"And Tommy McRae, he contributed a lot to this area ... because they're still talking about him," she said.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: