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Adrian Stokes was a British writer and painter, known principally as an influential art critic. He was also a published poet. Although Melanie Klein wrote about him as Mr B ‘a true homosexual’ (p. 265) in The Psychoanalysis of Children , it was depression, not homosexuality or bisexuality, that led to analysis with her between 1929 and 1935, and again briefly in 1946. These analyses were followed by a sustained relationship with her and friendship with many of the talented Kleinian analysts of the time. Without developing an interest in psychoanalysis per se his understanding of the function and purpose of art was profoundly informed by his analysis. Richard Wollheim, the philosopher and editor of The Image in Form (1972), a selection of Stokes’ writings, observed that there seemed a ‘place reserved’ in Stokes’ mind for Melanie Klein's ideas. Stokes’ influence on contemporary culture was prodigious. He had a major part to play in the establishment of St Ives as an important artist's colony, he was an early trustee of the Tate and a founding member