ANDREA MODICA
Andrea Modica was born in New York City and lives in Philadelphia, where she works as a photographer and teaches at Drexel University. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fulbright Scholar and the recipient of a Knight Award.
Her books include Treadwell (Chronicle), Minor League (Smithsonian Press), Barbara (Nazraeli), Human Being (Nazraeli), Fountain (Stinehour Editions), l’Amico del’Cuore (Nazraeli), As We Wait (l’Artiere) now in its second edition, Lentini (KGP+), a collection of portraits of Mummer Wenches, titled January 1 (l’Artiere). Her most recent works include a book of photographs made at a horse clinic in Italy, titled Theatrum Equorum (Tis Books) and a series .of portraits of girls attending Catholic school, titled Catholic Girl (L’Artiere).
Her photographs have been featured in many magazines, including the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, Newsweek and American Photo.
Modica has exhibited extensively and has had solo exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts.
Her photographs are part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the International Museum of Photography and Film at the George Eastman House, and the Bibliotheque Nationale.
All the photographs on this website and in Andrea Modica’s books are made with an 8X10” camera with Kodak Tri-x film. The final prints are platinum-palladium.
Andrea Modica’s work is published by L’Artiere. Her latest publications are linked below.
Andrea Modica
Catholic Girl
Exhibitions
September 10 — October 22, 2026
Andrea Modica is a distinguished photographer whose career spans four decades. Known for her meticulous technique, she utilizes a 19th-century platinum printmaking process and a large-format 8x10 camera to create luminous black-and-white portraits.
Her work is characterized by its deep intimacy and collaborative nature, often influenced by the styles of August Sander and Diane Arbus.
Originally shot in 1984 and recently published as a monograph by L'Artiere, Catholic Girl serves as a poignant time capsule of teenage identity and subculture.
The series documents students at all-girls Catholic high schools in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn (Modica’s alma mater) and New Haven, CT. Modica initiated the project just seven years after her own graduation, using the camera to "dissect" personal complex memories of high school—a period she describes as a mix of "intense joy and unfathomable grief".
Catholic Girl explores the tension between the conformity of school uniforms and the girls' emerging individuality. Modica captures the "clashing" of cultural influences, where traditional religious symbols meet the defiant aesthetics of 1980s punk and disco. The collection highlights expressive details such as 1980s “pouf” hairdos, leather jackets, black lipstick, and rolled-up skirts used to subvert strict dress codes.
Shooting with an 8x10 camera required subjects to remain still for several minutes, transforming the sessions into a slow, collaborative performance rather than a simple snapshot.
Opening Reception:
Thursday, September 10, 2026
6:30pm — 8:30pm