"An incredible archive of paintings by Northwest Coast artists, allowing the viewer to explore the creativity, energy, and depths these artists have achieved." - Robert Davidson

In the two decades since its initial publication, The Transforming Image has become a must-have book for scholars and appreciators of Northwest Coast art, and, importantly, for First Nations artists, who have come to rely on its wealth of images and ideas. A new edition of this groundbreaking volume makes its invaluable findings accessible once again.

Its hundreds of photos of historical Indigenous artworks - objects and belongings now widely dispersed in collections around the world - are the extraordinary result of the Museum of Anthropology's Image Recovery Project, which used infrared photography to reveal paintings on historical Northwest Coast objects whose surfaces are obscured by the patina of age. The project assembled nearly a thousand different paintings over its two-decade run, and worked with contemporary First Nations artists to reconstruct the compositions and understand their original context and significance, which the authors discuss in their insightful and engaging commentary. These rediscovered artworks radically deepened the understanding of Northwest Coast First Nations painting, including techniques, materials, imagery, and the creativity of generations of ancestor artists.

A new preface by Karen Duffek speaks to what the book has helped set in motion, and how First Nations artists and scholars today are taking this art forward in new and compelling directions.

Bill McLennan is a projects manager and curator for the Museum of Anthropology at UBC. In 1980, he originated the Image Recovery Project, from which this book developed.

Bill McLennan's profile page

Karen Duffek is the Curator of Contemporary Visual Arts and Pacific Northwest at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at the University of British Columbia. Her research focus lies both in the history of MOA's Northwest Coast Aboriginal collections — including connecting and documenting historical objects with descendants and originating community members — and in the relationship of twentieth-century and contemporary art to cultural practice. Her publications include the books Bill Reid and Beyond: Expanding on Modern Native Art (co-edited with Charlotte Townsend-Gault, 2004) and The Transforming Image: Painted Arts of Northwest Coast First Nations (co-authored with Bill McLennan, 2000).

Karen Duffek's profile page