Dr. Cheryl Finley is a prize-winning art historian, author and curator of contemporary African Diaspora art, photography and performance. She holds a Ph.D. in African American Studies and History of Art from Yale University. She is the Inaugural Distinguished Visiting Director of the Atlanta University Center Collective for the Study of Art History & Curatorial Studies in Atlanta, GA., and an Associate Professor of Art History at Cornell University. Dr. Finley is also a Visiting Professor at the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre at the University of Johannesburg and a member of the Advisory Committee of the Getty Research Center’s African American Art History Initiative.

 

She is the author of Committed to Memory: the Art of the Slave Ship Icon (Princeton UP, 2018), which was awarded the Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Book Prize for the best book on the decorative arts, design history, or material culture of the Americas published in 2018. A specialist in the art market, Dr. Finley’s current research examines the global art economy, focusing on the relationship among artists, museums, biennials and migration in the book project, Black Market: Inside the Art World.