Description: Motif #1, a fishing shack on Bradley Wharf off Bearskin Neck is Rockport’s trademark. I didn't realize this until I'd come home and looked at the visitor guide I'd picked up. I took a picture of the faded red shack covered with buoys (and pigeons) because it seemed to depict exactly what Rockport is about. Picturesque, quaint, fishing village.
Motif #1 was so-named by Lester Hornby, probably best known for his WWI sketches and etchings. In 1918, Hornby received a pass from General Pershing in order to portray the American Army in advances along the Marne and the Meuse Rivers. He ate, slept, lived and advanced with the American Doughboys and was hospitalized once after a mustard gas attack. During the war he was able to depict American fighting men with inordinate sensitivity and compassion.
After the War, Hornby taught in Cape Ann, and the story goes that his students so often used this fishing shack as a subject for their work that he named it Motif #1.
In fact, Motif No. 1 is outranked as an artist's image only by the Mona Lisa. When it collapsed in the Blizzard of 1978, the townspeople quickly rebuilt it – such is the place of art (and tourism) in Rockport.
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