Margaret Mellis was an artist for 77 years, most of them spent in and around the Waveney valley. Her work – from social realist painting, through still life and abstracts to driftwood constructions – is widely celebrated. In 1939 she was part of the St Ives artistic community that included Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and her first husband, art theorist and painter Adrian Stokes. In 1950 she moved to Syleham and later Southwold with her second husband Francis Davison, himself a notable collagist. The beach provided the raw materials for her later work. Both artists provided perhaps unlikely inspiration for Damien Hirst. 

Image - Cloud Cuckoo Land, Margaret Mellis 1991

Her son Telfer Stokes studied at the Slade, painted in New York and London then switched to producing artist’s books, visual books – books which are themselves works of art (or works of art that are also books…). After 30 years’ collaboration with Helen Douglas in the Scottish Borders, in 2004 he moved to the Southwold house of his by now widowed mother. Margaret died in 2009. Telfer also has a studio in Lowestoft where he now makes dynamic sculptures from scrap metal. The Aldeburgh Gallery staged a very successful exhibition of them in 2024. 

Image - Hunting, Telfer Stokes

Telfer Stokes will be talking with Nicky Stainton – long-time friend and co-founder of Waveney & Blyth Arts - at The Cut in Halesworth. Their conversation will include works from both mother and son artists. Tickets £8.

Images courtesy of Telfer Stokes. Ian Collins, Black Dog Books Making Waves