Art historian, curator, and author Patricia Ainslie was born in England and raised in South Africa. She moved to Calgary in 1977 and began work at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary in 1979, where she worked as a curator until 2006. She was instrumental in building the Glenbow's art collection and organized many of its exhibitions over the years, including Images of the Land: Canadian Block Prints 1919-1945 (which was shown internationally). She also planned exhibitions of the works of Margaret Shelton, Laurence Hyde, Cecil Buller, H.G. Glyde, and Jack Shadbolt. For her important work in printmaking, she was elected to the Print Council of America. As Vice President of Collections at Glenbow from 1993 to 2006, she worked on innovative museological projects, including deaccessioning, grading of collections and repatriation. She has published in scholarly journals and presented lectures on these topics in North America, England and Europe.

Since leaving Glenbow and relocating to the Okanagan in 2006, Ainslie has worked as an independent curator and writer. She co-authored Alberta Art and Artists, published in 2007; Ted Godwin: The Regina Five Years: 1957-1967, published in 2008; and Okanagan Artists and their Studios, published in 2013.