Her works continued to be well-regarded for many years after the group's formation, in contrast to those by many of her Victorian modernist colleagues, with favourable reviews from critics such as Sir Philip Hendy in the United Kingdom and Bernard William Smith in Australia.

She died in 1991 and is little-known in comparison to some other women artists including Grace Cossington Smith and Clarice Beckett, but her fortunes were revived somewhat as a central figure in Anne Summers' 2009 book The Lost Mother.

Her painting, Portrait of Mrs. W. Mortill, was one of only two to draw praise from prominent member of the Heidelberg School, Arthur Streeton,[3] who described the work as a "rare attraction" that was "liquid and luminous".

By 1945, when the Melbourne Contemporary Artists held one of their exhibitions, art critic Alan McCulloch observed that the works were increasingly lacking in originality and that the former standards of the group were being maintained by only a few members.

[17] While Stokes was being praised at home in Melbourne, one of her portraits was among six paintings owned by the National Gallery of Victoria that were loaned for an exhibition on the other side of the country, in Perth.

Calling it Girl Drying Her Hair, the paper described the work as "notable for its patient handling, use of bright colour and skilful blending of figure and background".

[18] The National Gallery of Victoria refers to the work as Woman Drying Her Hair,[19][notes 1] which it had acquired in 1947 at the behest of curator and artist Daryl Lindsay.

[23] Despite these prominent painters being selected for inclusion, when the exhibition appeared in London, Stokes' Girl in Red Tights drew critical attention and acclaim.

Admired by the director of the National Gallery Sir Philip Hendy, the work was proclaimed by the art critic at The Times as the "best picture in London that week".

A meeting of the Royal Art Society of New South Wales urged Prime Minister Menzies to intervene, members describing the paintings as "the worst ever gathered in one place".

[23] The following year, Joseph Burke, Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Melbourne, praised Stokes' painting, making particular reference to her work that had so entranced viewers at the 1953 exhibition.

[29] Faced with a substantial mortgage to service, and encouraged by Phyl Waterhouse, Stokes returned to work toward a solo show at Leveson Street Gallery.

[31] Throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, she painted and held shows; this later phase of her work was based on a stronger, if lighter, colour palette and reflected the influence of the art of Henri Matisse, whom Stokes admired.

[2] The standard reference work, McCulloch's Encyclopedia of Australian Art, describes Stokes as "a leading figure in the modernist movement in Victoria".

Exceptions, according to feminist writer Anne Summers, include Ursula Hoff's Masterpieces of the National Gallery of Victoria and Janine Burke's Australian Women Artists.

[35] While academic artists and art historians such as Bernard William Smith and Joseph Burke praised Stokes' work during her lifetime, she faded into relative obscurity.

[37] Summers contrasts Stokes' ongoing obscurity with the dramatic resurrection of the oeuvre of artists Grace Cossington Smith and Clarice Beckett, both brought to attention by well-regarded gallery curators.

Summers considers a number of factors to be involved in Stokes' fate, including her association with George Bell, whose destruction of many of his early pictures, propensity to keep reworking his old pieces, and artistic conservatism, all limited his subsequent reputation.

[6][38][39] Summers also points to the lack of a high-profile champion of Stokes' work, and her Melburnian identity in a time when "Sydney was where the ideas and the experimentation were and the place where reputations were made".