A magnetic energy functional is derived for an arbitrary curved thin shell on the assumption that the magnetostatic effects can be reduced to an effective easy-surface anisotropy; it can be used for solving both static and dynamic problems. General static solutions are obtained in the limit of a strong anisotropy of both signs (easy-surface and easy-normal cases). It is shown that the effect of the curvature can be treated as the appearance of an effective magnetic field, which is aligned along the surface normal for the case of easy-surface anisotropy and is tangential to the surface for the case of easy-normal anisotropy. In general, the existence of such a field excludes the solutions that are strictly tangential or strictly normal to the surface. As an example, we consider static equilibrium solutions for a cone surface magnetization.