Anne Louise Avery is an award-winning art historian, specializing in 18th and 19th century African American art. She is a world expert on  Edward Mitchell Bannister and is currently working on a detailed biographical study, based on new primary sources, and the first catalogue raisonne of his works. She frequently advises auction houses, galleries and private individuals on Bannisters oeuvre, contributing to catalogues and providing detailed authentication analysis.

Since graduating summa cum laude from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, she has studied at the University of Oxford, ICU University, Tokyo,  and Brown University, where she recently held a fellowship in American art history. 

She is also the director of Flash of Splendour Arts, through which she curates and consults on both historical and contemporary touring exhibitions. Most recently, she researched and curated the critically-acclaimed UK Heritage Lottery funded exhibition, Connections: Oxfordshires Links to Slavery and the Slave Trade, which revealed both Oxford Universitys centrality to transatlantic slavery and the countys hitherto unknown black heritage (Museum of Oxford, 2008; Oxfordshire Museum at Woodstock, 2009). Future exhibitions include The Blazing World: Women and Creativity in Restoration England and A Song of Myself: Art, Music and Ideas by British Students with Special Needs.