Kenneth McConkey is Emeritus Professor of Art History at the University of Northumbria. He is an expert on British, Irish and French painting of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially Sir John Lavery, British Impressionism and the New English Art Club, and has published extensively on the art of the period, including on George Clausen. He is the Art Detective group leader for British twentieth century, except portraits.

Kenneth McConkey's 2021 book Towards the Sun: The Artist-Traveller at the Turn of the Twentieth Century is available from Paul Holberton Publishing.