Milan — Oliviero Toscani, the photographer behind Benetton’s provocative advertising campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s, later parted ways with the Italian knitwear brand amid controversy. He died Monday at the age of 82.
Toscani revealed last year that he suffers from a rare disease. “It is with great pain that we announce that our beloved Oliviero has embarked on his next journey,” his wife, Kirsti, and their three children said in a statement. News agency ANSA reported that he died at a hospital in Livorno, Tuscany.
Toscani suffered from amyloidosis, a disease that causes abnormal protein deposits to build up in the body. He told Corriere della Sera in August that he had lost 40 kilograms (almost 90 pounds) in one year, adding, “I don’t know how long I have left to live, but I’m not interested in living like this anyway.”
Toscani said he wanted to be remembered “not for one photo, but for my entire work and dedication.”
Toscany was the creative force behind a shocking advertising campaign in the 1980s and 1990s that showed the Pope kissing an imam on the lips, a move that outraged the Vatican.
Other images promoting United Colors of Benetton depict a priest holding a nun, a newborn with an umbilical cord, and a black woman breastfeeding a white baby, part of the brand’s advocacy for diversity, religious tolerance and environmental messages.
While photographing a 1997 Benetton campaign featuring Jews and Arabs living peacefully together in Israel, Toscani told The Associated Press: “Every photograph is a political image, so we make choices, we choose the real thing.”
He continued, “We may have to face criticism. Many people don’t like to be different. Everyone likes to conform. We do not comply with this.”
Decades-long ties with Benetton were severed in 2020 after Toscani infuriated relatives of victims of the deadly 2018 Genoa bridge collapse, telling RAI television: “Who cares about bridge collapses?” He was responding to protests over photos of founding members of the political protest movement, along with leading members of the Benetton family that controls the company that maintains the bridge.
“I’m sorry,” Toscani told La Repubblica. Read more: I’m embarrassed to apologize. “I was devastated as a human being and suffered deeply.” But the damage was severe, and Benetton ended a relationship that flourished from 1982 to 2000 and then rekindled in 2018.
Benetton remembered Toscany through a social media post: “Hello, Oliviero. ‘Keep dreaming’ is written beneath a photo of Toscany’s 1989 hand offering a bouquet of flowers.
Toscani was born in Milan on February 28, 1942, the son of a photojournalist from Corriere della Sera. He studied photography and graphics at the Zurich University of Arts from 1961 to 1965, and worked for the newly founded Vogue Italia and other major fashion publications.
Over the years, he has photographed campaigns for brands such as Chanel, Robe di Kappa, Fiorucci and Esprit. But he is perhaps best known for his work with United Colors of Benetton, whose images convey messages promoting equality and diversity while condemning anorexia, homophobia, the death penalty and racism.
His work for United Colors of Benetton, a brand best known at the time for its colorful knitwear, brought him worldwide recognition. In the early 1990s, he conceived and directed “Colors”, a global publication distributed in Benetton stores, and together with Luciano Benetton founded Fabrica, a research center in Benetton’s hometown of Treviso, which supported and launched many fashion industry careers. I did it.
Toscani responded to the AIDS crisis with a colored condom campaign in the early 1990s. During this period, Benetton sold a variety of colored condoms and used a colored version of a portrait of AIDS activist David Kirby surrounded by his family as he lay dying.
Toscani’s “No Anorexia” campaign for Italian fashion brand Nolita in 2007 sparked new discussions about the disease and its relationship with the fashion industry. Toscani’s photo with skeletal model Isabelle Caro garnered worldwide attention after being featured on billboards and newspaper ads during Milan Fashion Week.
He has also worked on projects that address issues such as road safety, violence against women and abandoned dogs.
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Zampano reported from Rome.
