THOMASTON – A Thomaston man is being remembered as a talented artist and a warm friend.

Lawrence Largay, 66, died Sunday at Maine Medical Center in Portland from injuriessuffered when he was struck by a pickup truck while crossing a street in Thomaston on Jan. 18.

Largay was a well-known painter and muralist, whose subjects included nature, Maine landmarks and people, and the Old West.

“Larry was a very, very capable artist and designer, and a very nice guy,” said Bangor resident J. Normand Martin who worked with Largay for close to a decade at Tom Cain Advertising in Bangor. “I was very fond of him. He was a great guy.”

Ed “Sonny” Colburn met Largay soon after Colburn got out of the service in 1957.

“I think Larry wished he’d been born in the days of the Old West, so that he could paint it,” said the Otis resident. “He was an artist, and just one hell of a guy and a friend.”

Largay was born in Bangor and graduated from John Bapst High School. He went on to study at the New England School of Art, the Vesper George School of Art and the Cleveland Art Institute.

His paternal grandfather, William Largay, operated a men’s clothing store in Bangor for many years. His maternal grandfather, L.T. Smyth, was editor of the Bangor Daily News.

What made a proper subject for the versatile Largay? After winning the grand prize at the 1966 Bangor State Fair for his portrait “Konkapot Revisited,” he said, “I must be excited about the subject or I can’t paint it.”

Largay’s paintings and illustrations are valued by private collectors throughout Maine. His work is in the permanent collection at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland. Two of his pieces are featured at Geaghan’s Restaurant in Bangor, one a portrait of the owner and his sons, the other of the interior of the old Bangor railroad station.

Jim Cuthbertson of Thomaston worked with Largay illustrating college textbooks in the early ’80s, and they quickly became friends.

“He was quite accomplished as an artist, a wonderful draftsman who was open to all different insights and inspirations,” Cuthbertson said. “He had a wonderful sense of design and had a critical eye for nuance.”

One of Largay’s great loves was the outdoors, including hunting, fishing and walking through the woods. His illustrations appeared in American Angler, Fly Tyer, and Saltwater Fly Fishing magazines as well as books on fly-tying. He also piloted his own plane.

Largay was a student of Irish culture and played the bagpipes. Those came in handy when he helped to established the social club The Greater Norumbega Chowder and Marching Society. Colburn was a member of that group, and remembered an average meeting.

“We would meet at the old Momma Baldacci’s, across from where Legends is now [on the Bangor waterfront],” Colburn recalled. “Larry would take his bagpipes, and we’d leave there, walk toward Merrill Bank, go down Exchange Street, hit a couple bars there, then come back to Baldacci’s.”

He is survived by his wife of 34 years, Gracia Harkins Largay, his daughter, Catherine Largay Moore, and her husband, Jeff, of Downingtown, Pa., his sister, Connie Bourgault, of Hooksett, N.H.; his niece, Lisa McKenna, of Hooksett, N.H., his nephew, Dana Heath, of Leominster, Mass., and four sisters-in-law and three brothers-in-law.

A celebration of Largay’s life will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 8, at St. John Bapst Episcopal Church in Thomaston. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in his memory to Friends of Sunkhaze Meadows, 1168 Main St., Old Town, ME 04468.