A textbook is very important as educational material not only because it is the principal book of school education, carefully prepared accerding to curriculum, but also because it is used as a primary guide for students who will be the future lea ders of our society. A good art textbook, by introducing new work of art or new modes of artistic expressions, can help activities. Thus, it can contribute greatly to the cultivation of students’ aesthetic mind as well as to the enrichment of their emotional lives. Therefor, the influence of a good art textbook on art education can not but emphasized too much. This study examines the transition and improvement of the 26 art textbooks of elementary school, in terms of the works of art exemplified, their expressiveness and materials, and the layout of the textbooks. This covers the art textbooks for all the six grades of elementary school, form the first editions-published after the establishment of the first curriculum in 1955-to the 5th editions. In addition to this three types of questionnaire were used to investigate the responses of different groups-theachers(192), students(679), and experts (92)-to the currently used art textbooks, which are based on the 5th curriculum,. The results of this study are as follows: 1. A great quantity of items from the previous textbooks were duplicated in the revised editions. For in stances, in the 4th editions, the sculpture section of the 4th grade textbook(51.85%) and the design section of the 8th grade textbook(41.17%) showed the duplications of those of the 3rd editions. Many item were used repeztedly from the 2nd through the 4th editions : and from the 3rd through the 5th editions. 2. The 5th curriculum emphasizes the importance of Korean traditional art, but the 5th editions do not reflect this idea properly. The 4th editions show more examples of the traditional art than the 5th editions. 3. The number of the listed works is decreased extensively in th 5th editions