Description: Struck by the dynamic character of a 19th-century Northwest Coast painted chest that he had walked past many times at the museum where he worked, Bill McLennan decided to photograph it for closer study. Infrared film produced surprising results. Painted areas that had been obscured with a patina of oils and soot could now be clearly seen, as the complete painting emerged from beneath the weathered surface. With this find, the Image Recovery Project was born, whose object was to produce a database of infrared photographs of historical Northwest Coast paintings. The Transforming Image brings together some of the most intriguing images, many revealed for the first time since the objects were collected at the beginning of the 20th century. The written text by Karen Duffek brings forward new insights derived from the project's detective work, linking painted images to communities, histories, and the hands of individual painters.

The Transforming Image arose from the need of current generations to gain access to the creative achievements of their ancestors and to build on the cultural knowledge that the old paintings could reveal.

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