Laura Vecchi Ford

Laura Vecchi Ford was born in Italy in 1939. She studied art at the Brera Academy in Milan and had her first solo exhibition in 1967. In the late sixties she moved to Galway where she taught in the Italian Department of what was then UCG, going on to teach Italian Language and Literature, Modern Art History and Etching and Engraving for more than thirty years.

Throughout her academic career, art remained central in her life. She continued to make etchings, engravings, drawings, and paintings, exhibiting in Ireland, Britain, and Italy.

In 1976 she received a grant from the Art Council and founded the studio GRAFICA 2 IRELAND, producing editions of work by Italian and Irish artists for the first time, as well as her own graphic work. One of her engravings was used by Ted Turton for the very first poster of an Art Festival in Galway in 1976. Health, family and work pressures brought about the closure of her graphic studio in 1983.

Laura's paintings are often textured with wording. This developed gradually into fully formed poems which were published in two collections in Italy.

In 2020 The Kenny Gallery held a retrospective of Laura's work - Untitled, Unless Otherwise Stated - celebrating over 50 years of work by the artist.

Based in Galway, Laura works full time on painted and written surfaces of mohogany, and canvas while maintaining a more than academic interest in the fictional writing of the art critic Michele Spina.