ILLY ART COLLECTION

In 2006, Ai Weiwei covered ancient Neolithic vases with industrial paint, thus erasing their historical value through a process of appropriation. The work alluded to the destruction of ancient Chinese culture initiated by Mao. Our collection is a tribute to the artist's "Colored Vases".

AI WEIWEI

The simple geometric shapes on the saucer, once reflected on the cup, become graphs showing positive trends. Sagmeister invites us to look at reality from the right perspective" that of the long term. If we check the data, we realize that humanity has never had it as good as it does today.

STEFAN SAGMEISTER

Now is Better

The essence and the joy of sailing are personified by a heroic female figure, designed by the cartoonist Mattotti for the 52nd edition of the Barcolana regatta. A tribute to sailing and the role of women in this sport.

LORENZO MATTOTTI

Barcolana 52

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 widely consumed drink in the world.

BIENNALE

Various artists

Combining different media is like placing a cup on a saucer from a different set, as Ulrike Müller often does with tableware picked up in thrift shops. In this design, the artist combines digital elements with others drawn by hand, adapting them to each other.

BIENNALE

Various artists

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, using our own creativity.

BIENNALE

Various artists

A sketchbook is a small collection of daily life yet incorporating significant aspects, which the artist's mind binds through an invisible thread. Cameron Jamie fills his notebook while sipping a coffee and invites us to appreciate the beauty of the simplest things, like a flower.

BIENNALE

Various artists

Soft, simple shapes and bright colours: Olimpia Zagnoli’s art pays homage to futurism and the Beatles in equal measure, bringing six female figures to life in the collection for illy. These six women who differ in appearance and character raise their voices together in a conversation about the future, communicating in the language of colours.

OLIMPIA ZAGNOLI

Sisters

A coffee break is an opportunity for communication and socialising. Matteo Attruia provides a tool – or rather, two: the coffee cup and the saucer – to send a short yet meaningful message, imbuing the moment with special significance.

MATTEO ATTRUIA

It's up to you

The eyes are the only internal organs visible from the outside, and each iris has its own utterly unique pattern. With this collection, Marc Quinn invites us to reflect on the essence of our own humanity and authenticity, which are reflected in the cup.

MARC QUINN

Iris

How many stories can be born out of a single coffee stain? These coffee cups are not the fruit of a structured project, but an exercise in which Max Petrone applied the line-drawing style of underground comics to simple coffee stains, giving rise to six different tales.

MAX PETRONE

Coffee Drawings

Maurizio Galimberti offers us a glimpse of his adventures wandering through the urban landscapes of six Italian cities, through the lens of his Polaroid camera. Trieste, Venice, Rome, Pisa, Florence and Milan are represented by architectural details that reveal the full extent of their majesty.

MAURIZIO GALIMBERTI

Journey to Italy

A porcelain canvas, a limit to work within, a fabric flowing freely. Ron Arad has brought the sinuous delicacy of silk to his cups and saucers, triggering a spontaneous interaction between the objects. The result is a design on the border between realism and the abstract, enveloping each cup in its embrace.

RON ARAD

Miniature works of art so good you can almost taste them: Emilio Pucci’s coffee cups celebrate the cities of Rome, Paris, New York and Milan through six hand-drawn prints, in the fashion house’s unmistakable style. Each one captures the architecture, skyline, and unique charms of the city it depicts.

EMILIO PUCCI

Cities of the World

Dorfles revived the medium of egg tempera – used by master artists in the 1400s – to create these designs inspired by his own work from the 1930s. There is no key with which to interpret them and no message: for this multi-talented critic and painter, art must speak for itself through its forms and its colours.

GILLO DORFLES