Rockport Harbor

Max Pollak

Pollak moved away from his preferred color aquatint to do this black and white intaglio, using a series of varying vertical lines set against the horizontal line of the water. Fishing boats are tied up at the Bradley Wharf, which towers above them at low tide, accessable during this time only by using tall ladders.

The composition is of the noted mid-19th century fishing shack on Bearskin Neck is known as "Motif No. 1", situated in Rockport, Massachusetts, near Gloucester. Sometimes cited as the "most often-painted building in America", the structure was a popular subject for the artists' colony that established itself in Rockport in the 1840s. The title was believed to have been bestowed on the building by artist Lester Hornby, whose students seemed to always choose this building for their first painting.

This image captures the original building before its destruction in a major blizzard in 1978, after which the town rebuilt the shack to its original dimensions and paint type. The view is virtually unchanged today.