Though just a child at the time, Richard Shelton would grow to have children, and in turn grandchildren, of his own.

One of those grandchildren, Ian "Bluey" Shelton, visited the Bendigo Art Gallery on Saturday to see how the art world had depicted the man but for whom he would never have been born.

While controversy is still alive today about the legacy of the famous outlaw, Mr Shelton is understandably in the more sympathetic camp.

"To me Australia was a very different place in those times and life was pretty hard and particularly hard for the Kelly family because they were very poor people, and Ned’s father was obviously a drinker and he died while they were in Avenal," he said.

"Ned was head of the family at a very young age and his mother had a heck of a battle, and while stealing sheep or loaves of bread or something is (a crime) for them it was just a way of surviving."

"It's going to be very interesting to me to get around and see what the artists have made of it all."

Also touring the gallery ahead of Saturday night's opening of the Imagining Ned exhibition was a relation of the bushranger himself.

Leigh Olver is Kelly's great-grandnephew and he was equally keen to view the collection.

"Coming from a visual art and art teaching background I'm just really excited that these pieces are together," he said.

Mr Olver said he was also looking forward to catching up with the man who owes his very existence to his famous relative.

"It tends to be at these sorts of events that the friends of Ned get together and it's good to catch up," he said.

Perhaps just as unsurprisingly, Mr Olver shares Mr Shelton's sympathetic view of the Kelly legacy.

"I think times made his place in history, I think it was a really difficult time for pioneering families of that era," he said.