AN MP has paid tribute to one of Teesside's best loved amateur artists, who has died.

Self-taught painter in watercolours, Denis Alexander Smith, has died at the age of 73, following a long illness.

His working life in the factories, workshops - and a forge - on the banks of the River Tees was his main inspiration.

Ironically, Mr Smith first picked up a paint brush after a frustrating period of unemployment in the 1950s.

Stockton South MP Dari Taylor said of the artist, who was born in Stockton but lived at Thornaby: "Denis was a treasure, his artistic skills were tremendous and he represented the pride of Thornaby magnificently.''

Mr Smith has paintings in several public collections. One he refused to sell, despite offers, was a work depicting Lionweld Kennedy's hammer forge at Stockton in the 1960s.

The caption Mr Smith wrote for the painting's first exhibition said: "For me this was a time marked most by a rewarding and warm sense of cameraderie. Jobs like these are only bearable because of it.''

He often painted in richly detailed watercolours, in one depicting matchstick man artist L S Lowry waiting for a train at Thornaby railway station in the 1950s.