Richard Kidd, 56, whose paintings have been exhibited at galleries including the Museum of Modern Art and the Serpentine gallery, died on Saturday afternoon while swimming at Bataan's Dunsulan Falls, west of the capital, Manila.

The father-of-two had been out walking with his girlfriend Ailsa Lamble, 25, and her father Richard Lamble when the accident happened.

The area they were visiting is popular with swimmers and picnickers but local police said recent heavy rainfall had created strong currents near the falls.

A tearful Miss Lamble told local reporters she and her father had battled to save Mr Kidd but to no avail.

"I was swimming with my boyfriend but I got into the woods and when I came back I saw my father trying to pull him out of the water," said Miss Lamble who, like Mr Kidd, was a Newcastle University Fine Art graduate.

"I ran away to get a stick and when I returned with the stick my father told me to get help. My father and two men from the village tried to resuscitate him for almost an hour."

Mr Lamble added: "As soon as he got into the water into what looked like a basin, he was sucked straight and couldn't come up again."

The couple had been in the Philippines for three weeks visiting Mr Lamble, who worked as a consultant for a local yacht design firm, and Mr Kidd had been planning to paint one of its luxury yachts.

Mr Kidd's abstract landscape paintings have been exhibited all over the world, including at the MOMA museums in San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, and Zurich, the Liverpool Museum, Central Square in Newcastle and the Rowan and Serpentine galleries in London.

He was born and raised in Newcastle but had also lived in London, Rome, California and New York.

He settled in a cottage in the pretty village of Preston-on-Stour near Stratford-Upon-Avon in Warwickshire with his wife Karen, and his daughters Daisy, 15, and Rachael, 17, but after the marriage broke up in 2001 he moved back to Gateshead.

His wife, who also goes by the name of Linsey, created the salt dough models which were the inspiration for one of his books, Monsieur Thermidor: A Fantastic Fishy Tale, while his daughter Daisy was said to be the inspiration for his self-illustrated debut Almost Famous Daisy!

He had been in a relationship with Miss Lamble, who had been one of his students when he was a fine art teaching assistant at Newcastle University, for around 18 months.

Mr Kidd’s family gathered at the Gateshead home of his parents Richard, 88, and Vera, 84, to mourn his loss.

Mr Kidd’s younger brother Anthony Robson-Kidd, 48, said: “I had to come and break the news to mum and dad. You never expect to have to do that.

“They have taken the news well for their age.

“It’s fair to say Richard survived everything thrown at him. He was a character and he had cheated death many times. It’s just sad nothing could have been done to prevent this tragic accident.”

Geoffrey Robson-Kidd, 52, said the family were immensely proud in his brother’s achievements.

“He had a very active life and still had a lot to give,” he said. “Ailsa is devastated but she is being supported by her father and that is important.

“We are hoping she will be able to fly back on Wednesday.”

Mike Brick, a painting lecturer at Newcastle, taught Mr Kidd there 30 years ago.

“Within a couple of weeks of meeting him it became apparent that he was brilliant,” he said.

“You came across a student like that once in a lifetime. He was hugely talented, immensely intelligent and an inspirational teacher. His students will be devastated.”

Caroline Walsh, Mr Kidd's literary agent, said he was a "devoted" father whose four published books were well-received although never best-sellers.

"He was a lovely man, very friendly, charming, very good company, and really driven," she said. "He was the sort of person who was a little hard to pin down because you were never quite sure where he was going to be. When he was writing the books, he would disappear off to work in the Scottish islands for a month to write, slightly to his wife's despair. I know he loved his two daughters very much."