‘All of Your Demons Will Wither Away’: paintings by Marguerite Horner

Clare Hall is pleased to present an exhibition by Marguerite Horner, which will be open for public viewing Monday to Friday, 9am to 4pm.

Clare Hall is proud to present All of Your Demons Will Wither Away, a remarkable exhibition by Marguerite Horner. It further upholds this college’s interest in the diversity to be found in contemporary art and its ability to provoke thought and feeling.  The dominant images in this show are concerned with light on water. She starts with photography, but in her pictures works solely with oil paint and watercolour, and gains her effects through the use of grisaille. This is a centuries-old method of painting, but that brings unity, tenderness and precision to any composition. But in Marguerite Horner’s art, her use of grisaille, instead of controlling nature, releases striking effects of light. Sea and land, instead of being dimmed by the consistent use of Payne’s Grey, are made to brim with new life.

This first took hold after she travelled by train along the Californian coastline. How could this view not become obsessive when looking westwards when all she could see was a measurable expanse of sand, sea, and sky? After spending two weeks with her daughter in Beachwood Canyon, and travelling to and fro to the Californian coast town Del Mar by trains, she returned to London and, in the course of 2022-23,  produced a burst of work, some of which was first presented in an exhibition titled ‘Numinous’,  shown in the Crypt, at St Marylebone Parish Church, London. She had earlier attracted considerable success, receiving the British Women Art Award in the year 2018, and exhibiting not only in the England but also in China and the USA. In 2023 her monochromes became the subject of a monograph in the Contemporary Artist Series, written by Matthew Holman and published by the Hurtwood Press. One of her admirers is the well-known novelist, William Boyd, who has kindly written a piece for her Clare Hall exhibition, which runs from 16 January to 26 February 2026.  We are enormously grateful for his analysis of the subtlety and beauty to be found in her art.

by Professor Frances Spalding, Chair of the Clare Hall Art Committee

Useful information

• Accessibility details: full step-free access, accessible toilet, lift. For accessibility queries, please email our Porters.
• Queries can be directed to Fiona Blake, Secretary of Clare Hall Art Committee.
• Discover more about art at Clare Hall via this page.