Flowers, butterflies, suns and moons adorn the new illy Art Collection designed by Kiki Smith, inspired by the natural charms of day and night. 

The American artist’s flowing, poetic images are beautifully expressed on the canvas of the illy cups and cans, reinterpreting the European decorative arts tradition of flower painting on ceramics with a fresh, whimsical twist. The fluid and fanciful designs of theKiki Smith collection transform the simple pleasure of drinking a cup of illy into an even richer sensory experience, heightened by the visual and tactile aesthetics of contemporary art.

Kiki Smith (b. 1954, Nuremberg, Germany) is an American artist whose explorations of the human condition, the body, and the realms of spirituality and nature have resulted in works of exceptional power and beauty spanning mediums from sculpture and printmaking to installation, textiles, and glass.  Since 1982, Smith’s work has been exhibited in nearly 150 solo exhibitions at museums and galleries worldwide and has been featured in hundreds of significant group exhibitions, including the Whitney Biennial, New York (1991, 1993, 2002); La Biennale di Firenze, Florence, Italy (1996–1997; 1998); and La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (1993, 1999, 2005, 2009, 2011).
Her work is held in more than forty important public collections in the United States and abroad.
Smith’s many accolades include the Theo Westenberger Women of Excellence Award (2010); the Nelson A. Rockefeller Award from Purchase College’s School of the Arts (2010); the Women in the Arts Award from the Brooklyn Museum (2009), the 50th Edward MacDowell Medal (2009), the Medal Award from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2006), the Athena Award for Excellence in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design (2006), the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture from the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine (2000), and Time Magazine’s “Time 100 : The People Who Shape Our World” (2006).