A follower alerted her that one of her works, "Tortellino con ingredienti," had been reproduced and displayed inside an Ikea store. But Cristina Cati was unaware of the decision: there was no collaboration, no authorized agreement. The Bolognese illustrator thus decided to take the Swedish giant to court, assisted by lawyer Lavinia Savini, obtaining a ruling in her favor. Ikea will now have to compensate her for the unauthorized use of the work. Interviewed by the Corriere di Bologna, Cati explained that the affair also represents an opportunity to reflect "on the value of creative work."
It all began in 2021, during the Christmas season, when a young woman who followed her on Instagram went to an Ikea store, saw her illustration, and recognized it. Thinking it was the result of a collaboration , she wrote to the illustrator to congratulate her. And it was then that it came to light that Ikea had no authorization to use Cati's work, nor to modify it, as she had done . The young woman herself realized this: she thought it strange that Cati hadn't mentioned it for such an important collaboration. And looking more closely at the images, she realized her name wasn't there. Cristina Cati sells prints, accessories, and kitchen furnishings using her creations.
The artist explains that initially, many advised her to stop, because they considered it impossible to go against a company as large as Ikea. It was a sort of David versus Goliath battle that would have led nowhere. Yet, Cristina emphasizes, she felt compelled to do so, precisely to defend the importance of her creative work. A unique endeavor, one that involves hours of work, time, but also ideas, experiments, research, and the development of a personal language. Over the years, there was even an attempt to reach an amicable settlement and a monetary offer intended to settle the matter, but it was deemed too low. Cati therefore moved forward, filing a lawsuit before the judge of the civil section of the Court of Bologna, which specializes in intellectual property disputes. The ruling, now final, was in favor of the artist, recognizing that the artwork displayed in the Casalecchio store was her "work of genius" protected by intellectual property law. Ikea will now have to compensate her. But above all, the principle that creative work must and can be protected has prevailed.
