The passion for beauty and well-made objects, the attention to the world of contemporary art and the exceptional quality of the blend led us to combine the sensory pleasure of coffee with the aesthetic pleasure of art by rethinking an everyday object such as the cup.
This is how the illy Art Collections are born: small art objects in the shape of a cup, numbered and signed, which transform the act of drinking an espresso into an experience that involves the senses and the mind.
2021
In 2006, Ai Wei Wei covered ancient Neolithic vases with industrial paint, thus erasing their historical value through a process of appropriation. The work recalled the destruction of ancient Chinese culture initiated by Mao. Our collection is a tribute to the artist's "Colored Vases".
2020
The simple geometric shapes on the saucer, once reflected on the cup, become graphs with a positive trend. Segmeister invites us to look at reality from the right perspective: that of the long term. If we read the data, we realize that humanity has never been as good as it is today.
The essence of the regatta and the joy of sailing are personified by a heroic female figure, designed by the cartoonist Mattotti for the 52nd edition of the Barcolana. A tribute to sailing and the role of women in this sport.
2019
The Slavs & Tatars collective plays with Arabic, Hebrew and Cyrillic characters to compose the sound "qaf", the first letter of the word "coffee" in the Arabian Peninsula and in East Africa. An intercultural homage to the most consumed drink in the world.
Combining different media is like placing a cup on the saucer of a different set, as Ulrike Müller often does with flatware recovered from thrifts shops. In this design the artist combines digital elements with others drawn by hand, adapting them to each other.
The simpler the elements, the more stories you can come up with. AD Minoliti, inspired by the Memphis group, plays with geometry and colors, forming a puzzle of figures that each of us can combine in different stories, based on our own creativity.
A sketchbook is a small collection of everyday but significant elements, which the artist's mind binds through an invisible thread. Cameron Jamie fills in his notebook while sipping a coffee and invites us to appreciate the beauty of the simplest things, like a flower.
Soft and simple shapes and vivid colors: Olimpia Zagnoli's art pays homage to futurism as much as the Beatles, giving shape to six female figures in the illy collection. Different women, in character and appearance, who undertake a six-voice dialogue about the future in the language of colors
Coffee is a moment of communication and sociability. Matteo Attruia provides us with an instrument, or rather two, cup and saucer, to form a brief message and give a special meaning to that small moment.
2018
The eyes are the only internal organ that can be seen from the outside and each iris is unique in the world. With this collection, Marc Quinn invites us to scrutinize the essence and authenticity of our humanity that are reflected in the cup.
How many stories can arise from a coffee stain? These cups are not born from a structured project, but from an exercise in style through which Max Petrone, applying the traits of Underground Comix to simple coffee stains, gives life to six different stories.
2017
Maurizio Galimberti, through the lens of his Polaroid, tells us about wandering in the urban landscape of six Italian cities. Trieste, Venice, Rome, Pisa, Florence and Milan are represented by architectural elements that reveal all their magic.
A porcelain canvas, a limit to be understood, a fabric to be folded. Ron Arad transfers the sinuous lightness of silk to cup and saucer, establishing a spontaneous interaction between these two objects. The result is a design halfway between realistic and abstract that wraps the cup in its entirety.
2016
These cups signed by Emilio Pucci are small works of art that pay homage to Rome, Paris, New York and Milan through six hand-drawn prints, with the unique style of the brand. Each cup reproduces the architecture, landscapes and fascinating peculiarities of the protagonist cities.
Dorfles decides to brush up on the medium of egg tempera, used by the great masters of the 15th century, to create these decorations inspired by his works of the 1930s. No interpretation and no message: for the eclectic critic and painter, art must speak for itself with its shapes and colors.
EUROPE