[1] A member of the Western Arrernte people, Namatjira was born and raised at the remote Hermannsburg Lutheran Mission, 126 km west-southwest from Alice Springs.

Namatjira's richly detailed, Western art-influenced watercolours of the outback departed significantly from the abstract designs and symbols of traditional Aboriginal art, and inspired the Hermannsburg School of painting.

However, Namatjira remained poorly treated by the government; he was sentenced to prison after leaving a bottle of rum on the back seat of his car, which was likely taken and consumed by a man who had then drunkenly beaten and killed his own wife.

Public and international outcry intervened in the liability ruling and Namatjira instead served less than two months in a native reserve in Papunya.

[3] As one of the foremost painters of the Hermannsburg movement, he blended indigenous landscapes and Western-style painting techniques to "bring central Australia to life, for thousands who had never seen it for themselves.

When he was 18 years old, he left the mission and married his wife Ilkalita, a Kukatja woman, who was christened Rubina upon their return to Hermannsburg.

[8] Namatjira was introduced to western-style painting through a charity art exhibition in 1933, which raised the money to bring fresh water to his hometown of Hermannsburg.

His landscapes normally highlighted both the rugged geological features of the land in the background, and the distinctive Australian flora in the foreground with very old, stately and majestic white gum trees surrounded by twisted scrub.

His colours were similar to the ochres that his ancestors had used to depict the same landscape, but his style was appreciated by Europeans because it met the aesthetics of western art.

[citation needed] In his early career, Namatjira's work included tjuringa (sacred object) designs, biblical themes and figurative subjects, and he also carved and painted various artefacts.

[15][16][17] Although Namatjira's paintings appear similar to conventional European landscapes, his work was imbued with his feeling for country and sacred sites.

[6] The Art Gallery of New South Wales website quotes George Alexander, coordinator of Contemporary Art Programmes:[18][19] Initially thought of as having succumbed to European pictorial idioms – and for that reason, to ideas of European privilege over the land – Namatjira's landscapes have since been re-evaluated as coded expressions on traditional sites and sacred knowledge.

Ownership of country is hereditary, but detailed knowledge of what it 'contains' is learnt in successive stages through ceremony, song, anecdote and contact.

[citation needed] To ease the burden on his strained resources, Namatjira sought to lease a cattle station to benefit his extended family.

Originally granted, the lease was subsequently rejected because the land was part of a returned servicemen's ballot, and also because he had no ancestral claim on the property.

This artificial social divide and the Arrernte culture that expected him to share everything he owned brought Namatjira into conflict with the law.

[19] When an Aboriginal woman, Fay Iowa, was killed at Morris Soak, Namatjira was held responsible by stipendiary magistrate, Jim Lemaire, for bringing alcohol into the camp.

Namatjira was charged with leaving a bottle of rum in a place, i.e. on a car seat, where a clan brother and fellow Hermannsburg artist Henoch Raberaba, could get access to it.

[citation needed] Convicted for an offence under the Welfare Ordinance 1953, for supplying an Aboriginal (a "ward") with liquor, he was sentenced to six months in prison.

Namatjira appealed against the conviction to the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory (with his defence supported by the Council for Aboriginal Rights in Victoria[23]).

[22] After the public uproar, the Minister for Territories, Paul Hasluck, intervened and the sentence was served at Papunya Native Reserve.

In January 2013, two gum trees that featured prominently in Namatjira's watercolours were destroyed in an arson attack, while they were in the process of being heritage-listed, in an "appalling and a tragic act of cultural vandalism".

[39][40] On 28 July 2017, Google commemorated Namatjira's 115th birthday with a featured Doodle for Australian users, acknowledging his substantial contributions to the art and culture of Australia.

[41] A number of Albert Namatjira's descendants paint at the Iltja Ntjarra - Many Hands art centre in Alice Springs.