Photographic detective work led to the discovery of formerly hidden masterpieces of First Nations painting on wood at the University of British Columbia. When museum curator Bill McLennan uncovered images beneath weathered surfaces using infrared, the Image Recovery Project was born, its object to develop 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 in over a hundred years. Karen Dufek 's text adds new insights derived from the project's detective work, linking painted images to communities, histories and the hands of individual painters.