Cheryl Finley

Walton Endowed Professor, Spelman College; Director, Atlanta University Center Art History + Curatorial Studies Collective

Cheryl Finley, PhD, is the Walton Endowed Professor and Director of the Atlanta University Center Art History + Curatorial Studies Collective at Spelman College. Committed to engaging strategic partners to transform the arts and culture industry, she leads an innovative undergraduate program at the world’s largest historically Black college and university consortium in preparing the next generation of museum and visual arts leaders.

A curator and contemporary art critic, Dr. Finley is also an award-winning author noted for Committed to Memory: The Art of the Slave Ship Icon (Princeton University Press, 2018), the first in-depth study of the most famous image associated with the memory of slavery—a schematic engraving of a packed slave ship hold—and the art, architecture, poetry, and film it has inspired since its creation in Britain in 1788. She serves on the Boards of Creative Capital, the Menil Foundation, Circuit Arts and Island Grown Initiative.

Photo credit: Gediyon Kifle