McRae, an Aboriginal artist, lived in or close to the Upper Murray area all his life, and was probably a member of the Kwatkwat people, whose country stretched south of the Murray River near the junction of the Goulburn River in Victoria. It is likely that he lived a traditional lifestyle during his formative years, and some of his drawings document the establishment of pastoral settlements, on which he worked as a labourer. In the early 1860s, Australian sculptor Theresa Walker gathered McRae's first drawings at Barnawartha. These artworks were attributed to 'Tommy Barnes', a name which may have been taken from an employer, the pastoralist David Barnes.

From evidence provided by the Victorian Board for the Protection of the Aborigines for 1885, it can be ascertained that McRae settled on the shores of Lake Moodemere at Wahgunyah, with his wife Lily, four children and his brother and sister-in-law in the early 1880s. He began to sell books of his drawings and gained a reputation for his work, which mostly depicted traditional Aboriginal life. Despite his attempts to prevent it, during the 1890s McRae's children were taken from him and sent to reserves around Victoria.

McRae's work is held in Canberra at the National Museum of Australia and the National Gallery of Australia, as well as in the Melbourne Museum and the State Libraries of Victoria and New South Wales.

Source: Australian Dictionary of Biography Online, http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au, Accessed 3 December 2007.