Real Indians: Portraits of Contemporary Native Americans and America's Tribal Colleges

Melcher Media, 2003. First Edition. Hardcover. Like New/No Dustjacket . 30x26x30. In 2000, photographer Andrea Modica, well-known for her three previous monographs — Treadwell, Minor League, and Human Being — was commissioned by the American Indian College Fund to create a body of portraits of contemporary Native Americans associated with America's Tribal Colleges. Working strictly in b&w, Modica brings to each portrait session an intensity balanced by the ponderousness of her view camera. Gathered together here under the sponsorship of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, her images present the faces of 'real indians' — individuals who live and breathe as tribal members in contemporary America. The introduction by noted native author Sherman Alexie is both touching and hilarious for it's forthrightness. 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 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.