In 1992 Francesco Illy had the brainwave of inviting a group of artists to express their creativity on the outside of an espresso cup that Matteo Thun had designed for illy. This marked the birth of the illy Art Collection, which transformed an object of everyday use into a white canvas on which, over the years, more than 100 artists of international fame, from young talents to great maestros like Michelangelo Pistoletto to Marina Abramovic, Anish Kapoor, James Rosenquist, William Kentridge, Yoko Ono and Gillo Dorfles, have tested their skill.
illy Art Collection cups are a tangible expression of illy’s concept of the culture of beauty. Coffee-lovers who sip an illy espresso from an artist-designed coffee cup actively combine the aroma and taste of the company’s blend with a complete aesthetic, visual and tactile experience; they establish a relationship with contemporary art. Graphically and conceptually, these artist-designed cups are the nexus where the different languages of the illy universe meet and interpenetrate, creating the “art and science of the espresso”.