In Search of Motif No. 1:: The History of a Fish Shack

by L.M. Vincent

Motif No. 1, a red fish shack, sits at the end of a granite pier in Rockport, Massachusetts. How did a humble fish house painted by numerous artists, including Aldro Hibbard, Anthony Thieme, Emil Grupp and Harrison Cady, become an icon? Author L.M. Vincent examines the shack's colorful history from its origins to the present day to answer the question. His exploration of this symbol of coastal New England, arguably one of the most painted buildings of its time, is a uniquely American story that will both inform and entertain.

Genres: History

160 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 2011

About the author

L. M. Vincent was born and raised in Kansas City. He is a comic writer by dispositon, having cut his literary teeth during his undergraduate years as a literary editor of the Harvard Lampoon. He has published four non-fiction books, two murder mysteries, two comic novels, and an historical novel, and two of his plays have been produced off-off-Broadway and regionally. LEVINSON OF HARVARD is his most recent novel.

Reviews

[SusanwithaGoodBook · Rating 2 out of 5]

We're going to see this building tomorrow, so I thought I'd read the history of it real quickly before we go. This book was certainly informative. Actually, too much so. I was really bored with the amount of detail, really. Page after page on the color of the paint was a bit more than I expected. If I was from the area or planning to paint its likeness I might have appreciated this more. As it is, the only thing I really enjoyed learning was that the locals mispronounce it as MO-tuff, not mo-TEEF. Weird, but good to know.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first learned about "Motif No. 1," the iconic red fishing shack that has been called the most frequent painting subject in the world, shortly after moving to the North Shore. I found it kind of charming, not only because of the clever name - which references the artists' somewhat cynical characterization of the shack as something every student has to start out painting - but also because the town boosterishly hosts "Motif No. 1 Day," with plein air painting, lobster bouy making demonstrations, a parade, and the like.

Eager to learn more about this previously unknown bit of New England quirk, I happily delved into this book when Steve brought it home from the library for me. On the plus side, I learned quite a bit about the shack's detailed history, much of it less romantic and more bread-and-butter than the town would probably like to let us imagine. The section of color plates showing paintings of the shack by the likes of John Sloan, Aldo HIbbard, Harrison Cady and others is an absolutely wonderful mini-catalog of early modernist painting. And there was some strong context (albeit all the way at the end, as an epilogue) connecting the shack story to American art history and comparing the prewar New England art colony scene of interesting people enjoying lengthy seashore stays to the postwar milieu, favoring daytrippers with box Brownies. On the downside, though, the book was a slog due to the author's overly embroidered, fey style. He just couldn't get out of the way of his subject, and his prose wandered aimlessly around the point, so much so that I found myself scanning text for some concrete nouns in order to feel the sections contained some content. Coy subtitles beginning with "In Which the Narrator..." and rambling rhetorical sections nearly destroyed my interest in the subject.

I'd say - read it because you have to if you're interested in Motif No. 1, since I don't think anyone else has dealt with it in book length form, or attempted to conduct so much original research and compile so many references. But bring a machete.