She was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2002 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to art history. She is a Professor Art History and Theory at the University of Essex in Essex, England. She has promoted surrealist and Latin American art. She has written books including on Salvador Dali. She has helped create a collection of more than 500 pieces of Latin American Art and organized exhibitions on Latin America and surrealism at the Hayward Gallery at the South Bank and Tate Liverpool in Liverpool, Merseyside, England.