Rockport, Massachusetts

I scanned these photos of Rockport a few months ago thinking I would do a post. I did a draft at the time & then never finished it.....So I decided this would be the time! Rockport, MA. is on Cape Ann & close to where I grew up. It's a small touristy town that hasn't changed much in 50 years--these photos were taken in the 1960's & most everything still looks the same!

Maybe a few more cars around, but most of the shops are the same...art galleries & ice cream shops & a few souvenir traps.....

Motif Number 1, located on Bradley Wharf in the harbor town of Rockport, Massachusetts, is a fishing shack well-known to students of art and art history as "the most often-painted building in America

Built in the 1840s as Rockport became home to a colony of artists and fishermen, the shack became a favorite subject of painters due to the composition and lighting of its location as well as being a symbol of New England maritime life. Painter Lester Hornby (1882-1956) is believed to be the first to call the shack "Motif Number 1 a reference to its being the favorite subject of the town's painters, and the name achieved general acceptance.

The shack was destroyed during the blizzard of 1978 but an exact duplicate was constructed that same year