The Cathedral of St. John is depicted in a painting by Mays. “I don’t think people realized how hard he worked,” Providence gallery owner Catherine Bert said Monday.

Journal Files/ ANDREW DICKERMAN

Maxwell Mays, a Providence-born painter whose whimsical depictions of Rhode Island made him one of the state’s best-known artists and who combined a playful folk-art style with an encyclopedic knowledge of local history, died Monday at age 91.

A family spokesman said Mays, who had been in ill health for the past few years, died peacefully at his home in the Greene section of western Coventry.

In a career that spanned more than six decades, Mays painted nearly every inch of Rhode Island, from the bustling docks of Newport Harbor to the small towns and villages of South County to the grand Federal Style mansions of Providence’s Benefit Street.

At the same time, Mays happily admitted that he wasn’t much interested in modern life. Instead, he was fascinated by history — particularly the history of his native New England — often spending weeks digging up information on everything from geography and architecture to genealogy and politics before embarking on one of his detail-filled paintings.

Despite the sometimes-exhaustive research that went into his work, Mays never meant for his paintings to be seen as visual history lessons. A gifted raconteur as well as a talented artist, he was essentially a storyteller who used his bright, childlike canvases to spin tales — some true, some embellished with a wry sense of humor — about his beloved home state.

Though Mays’ work is often compared to that of so-called “naïve” artists like Grandma Moses, Mays himself bristled at such comparisons. “I don’t know where they get that naïve stuff,” he complained in a 1998 interview. “It was invented by art people who needed a word for artists who didn’t have any formal training. That’s not what I do.”

Instead, Mays said, his goal was to “capture a sense of delight — the feeling we all have as children of looking at something that gives us delight.”

IN INTERVIEWS yesterday, friends and family praised Mays not only for his artistic skills but for his work in other areas, including his longtime association with the Providence Art Club and his involvement in causes such as environmental conservation.

“He was that rare breed — an artist who could connect with just about everybody,” said Art Club president Daniel Mechnig. “Besides being a great artist, he was a terrific human being. What’s the old line — ‘To know him was to love him.’ That was Max.”

Mechnig also recalled that during the 1970s, when the Art Club was struggling financially, Mays almost single-handedly brought the organization back from the brink.

“Basically, he saved our bacon,” Mechnig said. “That was back when he was president, and we were facing a double-whammy of declining membership and rising costs associated with maintaining some of the buildings. So what does Max do? He goes out and raises something like $750,000, which was a lot of money in those days.”

While acknowledging Mays’ talents as an artist, Providence gallery owner Catherine Bert also called attention to the effort that lay behind the paintings.

“I don’t think people realized how hard he worked, not just in the studio but in making sure the paintings got out to a wider public,” she says.

Born in Providence in 1918, Harry Maxwell Mays grew up in a well-to-do family headed by his father, W.C.S. Mays, an inventor-turned-businessman whose credits include one of the minor marvels of modern life: the metal pen clip. The clip, which held a pen or pencil firmly on a shirt pocket, became the mainstay of the family business, the Mays Manufacturing Co.

AS A CHILD, Mays attended Saturday morning art classes at the Rhode Island School of Design. Later, he attended RISD, graduating in 1941.

After serving in a map-making unit in Brazil during World War II, Mays returned to Providence, where he began exhibiting his work at local galleries. During his first solo exhibit, held in the Tilden-Thurber Building, Mays was introduced to Anthony Dyer, a prominent local painter who was also president of the Providence Art Club.

At Dyer’s urging, Mays joined the Art Club, beginning an association that would last for decades.

Despite their old-fashioned style — or perhaps because of it — Mays’ paintings are avidly sought after by collectors. Last year, for example, a 1962 painting titled “Winter Wonderland” sold for nearly $6,000 at a folk art and Americana sale organized by Christie’s, the New York-based auction house. The price was nearly twice the pre-sale estimate.

In addition, Mays’s paintings have graced a wide range of publications. Yankee Magazine alone has commissioned more than 20 cover illustrations from the artist.

In recent years, Mays was also active as a proponent of environmental conservation. In 2001, for example, he donated his 400-acre estate in Coventry — he insisted on calling it a “woodlot” — to the Audubon Society of Rhode Island.

Mays is survived by a sister, Alice M. Gray of Providence, and by five nieces and nephews. In an interview yesterday, a spokesman for the family indicated that a public memorial service would be held, but said that no date had been set.

bvansicl@projo.com