Anne Magill b. 1962

Anne Magill grew up on a family farm on the Ards Peninsula in Northern Ireland, before moving to England to study at St Martin’s School of Art. She soon gained international recognition for her dramatic, pared-back paintings and charcoal drawings. Her work, often resembling found photographs, depicts anonymous figures in intimate scenes, suggesting a story or memory just out of reach—or a personal significance now lost.

This sense of intrigue is the result of Anne’s meticulous process, in which each painting evolves over months, sometimes years, as she revisits and refines it, searching for that elusive moment of resolution. Anne’s ability to observe and empathize with people’s lives shapes her art. Her work goes beyond technical perfection, instead focusing on the poetry of an image—asking why a photograph survives, and what it means. Through her paintings, Anne invites viewers into a world of silent, untold stories, where every image provokes reflection and leaves space for personal interpretation.

Her work has won her international acclaim with work hanging in the collection of British Airways, Nike, Levi Strauss, Heineken, Canary Wharf, the Forte Group, SAP as well as major private collections worldwide.
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'Anne Magill is a witness, who bears testimony to a series of infinitely still and silent human scenes by means of her painting. The great power of her work is her Hopper-like genius to compel us to weave a story, conjured from our own repertoire about these scenes. Though we do not know the men or women we feel we recognise them, as they stand gazing at an event we cannot see or walking, face hidden under a hat, towards a destination of which we are unaware… Standing entranced before one of her paintings we become convinced that we will understand, eventually, the human truth which inspired the image'.

Josephine Hart

Viewing Room for Anne Magill's 2024 exhibition
Exhibitions
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- Walking The Land
  Anne Magill March 11, 2022
  
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Biography
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Solo Exhibitions

2023 Come Walk with Me, John Martin Gallery, London

2021 Walking The Land, Cromwell Place & John Martin Gallery, London

2020 Peter Fetterman Gallery, Santa Monica
2019 A Sense of Someone, John Martin Gallery, London

2018 RA summer show

2018 Sunday Times watercolour prize

2018 Discerning Eye

2017 Discerning Eye

2015 A+:100 years of visual communication by women. Central St Martins Gallery
2011 Anne Magill at Bourdon House, Dunhill, London
2011-19 The Concorde Room, British Airways & JFK, New York
2010-11 Journeys, Heartbreak, London
2008 Art London with Heartbreak, London
2008 Art London with Medici Gallery, London
2007 Anne Magill, Medici Gallery, London
2005 Anne Magill, Medici Gallery, London
2003 Anne Magill, Medici Gallery, London
2001 Anne Magill, Medici Gallery, London
1998 Anne Magill, Philharmonic Hall Gallery, Liverpool
1997 Anne Magill, Medici Gallery, London
1997 A Special Place II, Hybrid Gallery, London
1997 Anne Magill – New Paintings, J Walter Thompson Gallery, London
1996 A Special Place, Hybrid Gallery
1996 Anne Magill, Medici Gallery, London
1996 Mirror of the Soul, The Chapel of Art Gallery, Criccieth, Wales
1996 Arts of Work, Chelsea Art Club
1994 Anne Magill, Medici Gallery, London
1994 Anne Magill – New Work, Talberg Taylor Gallery
1994 Winter’s Morning, Equus Gallery, Newmarket
1992 Anne Magill – New Work, Talberg Taylor Gallery
1992 Men, Davies London
1992 Anne Magill, AOI Gallery

Education

1981 – 84 1:1 Hons degree illustration, St. Martin’s School of Art, London
1980 – 81 Foundation Course, Liverpool Polytechnic (now Sir John Moore’s College)

Awards

2021 The Pastel Society Catalogue Award - First Prize

2021 Unison Non-member Award

1992 B&H Gold Illustration Awards – First Prize
1991 B&H Gold Illustration Awards – Highly commended
1984 B&H Gold Illustration Awards – Highly commended
1983 B&H Gold Illustration Awards – Highly commended
1981 Design Council Award – Highly commended