ATHENS, Ga. --- A retired University of Georgia art professor died Monday when his house in the Cobbham historic neighborhood near downtown went up in flames.

Authorities said William "Bill" Marriott died of smoke and soot inhalation from an apparently accidental fire that was reported just before 4:30 a.m. on Meigs Street.

Mr. Marriott, 66, retired last year as an associate professor with UGA's Lamar Dodd School of Art, according to colleagues.

"I'm devastated," said Bill Paul, an art professor who began at UGA in 1965 and worked with Mr. Marriott until Mr. Paul retired in 1992.

"Bill was an artist of incredible commitment and was an incredible teacher," Mr. Paul said.

"He was quite an interesting character, known for all these witty cartoons he had outside his (office) door that gave a political sense of what was happening in the world," UGA art professor Diane Edison said. "He will be well-missed."

Mr. Marriott, who earned a master's degree in fine arts at Yale University, was a collector of "some perception" and obtained significant pieces, according to Mr. Paul, who feared the art collection was lost in the fire.

"Bill was a really smart, gifted person, and his work with students as an undergraduate adviser was excellent," Mr. Paul said.

Colleagues said Mr. Marriott's health was declining, and he hadn't publicly displayed his own work in several years.

But the late professor's art often was displayed in Athens in the 1990s, from the Lyndon House Art Center Juried Exhibition in 1993 to the 1998 Mental Health Benefit Auction, according to Mr. Marriott's resume.