PORT CLYDE – Artist William Thon died Wednesday evening at his Port Clyde home after a brief illness. He was 94.

Born in New York City, Thon moved to Port Clyde in the 1940s to be near the coast, a favorite subject of his paintings.

Thon served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and received the Prix de Rome from the American Academy in Rome in 1947. He received several other awards and honors, including an honorary doctorate from Bates College and the State of Maine Award and Citation from Gov. Kenneth M. Curtis in 1970. He was a member, trustee and juror of the American Academy in Rome, and a member of the Institute of Arts and Letters.

Many of Thon’s paintings, both oils and watercolors, were of boats and ships. He had owned a Friendship sloop, which he raced in the annual Friendship sloop races.

His paintings are held in private collections, as well as in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Farnsworth Art Museum, the Portland Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum and the Whitney Museum.

“Storm Sea,” a watercolor, is on display at the Portland Museum of Art, which has owned the painting since 1983.

“In Maine there is an abundance of things I like most, the kind of things I enjoy painting, or inspire me to paint,” Thon said in Alan Gruskin’s 1964 book, “The Painter and His Techniques: William Thon.”

In recent years, Thon’s eyesight was failing because of macular degeneration, so he switched to painting watercolors in black and white. He also had been giving lessons to Freedom Hamlin, a Maine College of Art student from Rockland.

Writer Carl Little, who has been working on a documentary about Thon, said recently that the painter was “the last of a generation.”

Thon’s wife of 70 years, Helen, died in November 1999. Her personal collection of her husband’s paintings was bequeathed to Bates College.

Calling hours will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Sunday at Burpee-Strong Funeral Home, 110 Limerock St., Rockland. A funeral will be held at 10 a.m. Monday at the funeral home. Contributions in Thon’s memory may be made to the Maine College of Art, 97 Spring St., Portland 04101.