LENSCRATCH - Fine Art Photography Daily

Andrea Modica: Italian Story by Aline SmithsonMay 12, 2026

©Andrew Modica, Book Cover of Italian Story, published by L’Artiere

©Andrew Modica, Spreads from Italian Story, published by L’Artiere

The photographs in this book were made over the past four decades, primarily in Italy, entirely with an 8×10 view camera. I suspect I will continue this work for as long as I am taking pictures.

The title reflects the complexity of the Italian word storia, which holds meanings as diverse as history, story, situation, issue, fuss, hassle, tale, or lie. Depending on context, it may also refer to a love story, brief or ongoing. Italian Story is a broad narration: a record of events, a historical fiction. –Andrea Modica, 2026

Italian Story, published by L’Artiere is a deeply personal and poetic journey through Italy, spanning over forty years of photographic work by American photographer Andrea Modica.

Born into a third-generation Italian-American family, Modica began traveling to Italy as a young woman, gradually building a visual archive of the country’s landscapes, people, rituals, and moments of quiet intimacy. These photographs, taken across decades and regions, form a lyrical exploration of identity, memory, and belonging filtered through Modica’s singular, tactile photographic language.

There is something visceral about Modica’s photographs, a palpable combination of love, melancholy, and sensuousness that lingers after the image is seen. She turns her lens toward the overlooked and the intimate, revealing a quiet tenderness in moments that might otherwise pass unnoticed. In Modica’s photographs, aging is not something to conceal but to honor, a testament to the passage of time. These elements help creates a body of work that feels deeply human, grounded in reality yet infused with a poetic sensitivity that transforms the everyday into something quietly profound.

001_Modica_Deposit, New York_from Italian Story

©Andrew Modica, Deposit, New York from Italian Story, published by L’Artiere

Andrea Modica lives in Philadelphia, where she works as a photographer and teaches at Drexel University. A graduate of the Yale School of Art, she is a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fulbright Scholar.

Her books include Treadwell (Chronicle Books), Barbara (Nazraeli), Minor League (Smithsonian Press), Human Being (Nazraeli), Fountain (Stinehour Editions), L’Amico del Cuore (Nazraeli), As We Wait (L’Artiere Editions), January 1 (L’Artiere Editions), Lentini (Kris Graves Projects) Reveal (Yoffy Press), 2020 (TIS Books),Theatrum Equorum (TIS Books), Catholic Girl (L’Artiere Editions) and Italian Story (L’Artiere Editions).

Modica’s solo exhibitions include 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 numerous institutions, including 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 ICP, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the International Museum of Photography and Film at the George Eastman House, and the Bibliotheque Nationale.

Instagram: @andreamodica.photo