Jacqui Ansell read Art History and Theory at Essex University and gained an MA in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute. Formerly an Education Officer at the National Gallery, London, she can be heard on numerous podcasts on their website, analysing works of art in the collection. As a longstanding Associate Lecturer and tutor for the Open University she was singled out for excellence in teaching, selected to mentor other tutors, and asked to produce study skills material in art history.

As well as writing for Open University courses, Jacqui has written distance-learning modules on art history and twentieth and twenty-first century art for a degree course validated by Middlesex University. She lectures regularly on the public programmes of the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery and Wallace Collection, and is an accredited Art Society Lecturer, with specialism in art and dress history. Publications and research interests include Court dress, Grand Tour portraiture, the National Gallery’s collection, and the links between furniture and fashion. Her contribution to the book Understanding Heritage in Practice (edited by Susie West, Manchester University Press 2010) formed part of the Open University's course Understanding Global Heritage, and she is currently writing a book about Vincent Van Gogh's time in Ramsgate (1876). Jacqui taught at Christie's Education for over 15 years.