COLCHESTER artist Ian Hay is far too modest to agree he's as important a part of the town’s artistic landscape as his own painting heroes.

But it’s an undeniable fact that he has left a lasting legacy, not only on Britain’s oldest recorded town, but the students who have studied here.

A brief little anecdote as I’m leaving his house demonstrates this.

“My son has a house in Ibiza and one day someone came in and spotted one of my ‘car’ paintings,” he reveals. “He turned around to my son and asked whether that was an Ian Hay, and of course my son replied that it was and that in actual fact I was his dad. Then the man revealed he used to be a student of mine and had always liked my ‘car’ paintings.

“My son told me about this and just a few weeks later his wife got in contact with me to see if I could send him one of my paintings for his birthday.”

I suspect there are quite a few other ex-students who have felt the same way much as Ian still does about the ‘incredible’ artists who taught him his craft.

Born and brought up in Harwich, Ian showed early signs of artistic promise even at secondary school.

“I was 14 at the time and not particularly academic,” he smiles. “But the school must have thought I had a genuine talent because they sent me to the Colchester School of Art every Friday to do plant drawing with Dickie Chopping.”

Richard Chopping, along with partner Denis Wirth-Miller, spent most of their lives in Wivenhoe, and while they were perhaps most famous for bringing Francis Bacon to the estuary town, Richard was also well known as the illustrator of the first James Bond books.

“Dickie was a terrific influence on me,” he adds. “My father had always been at sea and it was expected that I would follow him in the Merchant Navy but Dickie persuaded me to think about taking up art full time. I think my parents’ main concern was income and making money from art but they relented. I knew I had to work hard to make it possible, and I did.”

Ian ended up at the School of Art for five years, under the tutorship of such great local artists as John Connor and John Nash, and after he graduated he got a place at the prestigious Royal College of Art, where he remained for three years.

Ian says: “My contemporaries were people like Ridley Scott, James Dyson and David Hockney.

“After that I taught part-time at St Martin’s, where I stayed for the next 14 years.”

Ian used to commute to London from Colchester sitting next to another great Colchester-based artist, Henry Collins, who along with his partner, Joyce Pallet, created the iconic concrete friezes which continue to brighten the town’s subways.

“He was like a father figure to me,” Ian tells me. “I learnt more about art and design travelling up to London with Henry than I did in three years at the Royal College of Art.”

Eventually Ian got a job at the Colchester School of Art himself, where he taught for more than 30 years until his retirement at the age of 60 in 2005. Four years later he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Essex University for his contribution to art education. While at the school students included Eighties pop singer Sade, as well as Wivenhoe artist Jamie Dodds and the current President of the Colchester Art Society, Simon Carter.

Now Ian is back at his spiritual home, The Minories, where his current exhibition, Landscape, runs alongside a show by former student, Simon Carter.

“I’m very pleased to be showing my work at the same time as Simon’s,” he says. I’ve been a member of the society for a long time and he’s now president and although our work is very different we are both deeply influenced by the landscape around us.”

For Ian’s latest show, the cities of Venice, Amsterdam and London are all represented but it’s the vibrantly colourful, almost romantic, depictions of his home town that really stand out.

“I won the landscape prize at college,” he reveals, “so it’s always been something that I’ve enjoyed. I think it helps I’m from East Anglian. My thing has always been about light and low horizons. The big skies that dominate this area that we live in. It’s been a huge influence for many of the artists who have lived here.”

I suggest may be that’s why he was so attracted to painting in Amsterdam and Venice, because the water’s reflection extends the vistas, creating a wider landscape to draw from.

“I think you might be right,” he agrees. “But I do love architecture and the urban aspects in a landscape as well.”

With Colchester, Ian is not ashamed to admit there’s also a huge dose of nostalgia running through his paintings.

“I have my favourite places,” he smiles. “High Woods, Old Lane and Cymbeline Meadows, even Albert Street, which is almost like a street that time forgot with its lovely Victorian feel to it. Being a student here and walking every day up to North Hill, I think these places have become part of the fabric of who I am. May be there is a bit of sentimentality and nostalgia to my work but what’s wrong with that.

“I used to take students out to these places just as John Nash did with me.”

Ian Hay: Landscape: Town and City runs at the Minories, High Street, Colchester, until February 25, open Mondays to Saturdays, 10am to 5pm. Admission is free.