Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani, famous for his provocative Benetton campaigns, has died at 82

MILAN — Oliviero Toscani, the photographer behind Benetton’s provocative ad campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s who later parted ways with the Italian knitwear brand amid controversy, died Monday at the age of 82 years.

Toscani revealed last year that he suffered from a rare illness. “It is with immense 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. He died in a hospital in Livorno, Tuscany, the ANSA news agency reported.

Toscani suffered from amyloidosis, a disease characterized by a buildup of abnormal protein deposits in the body. He told Corriere della Sera in August that he had lost 40 kilos (nearly 90 pounds) in a year, adding: “I don’t know how long I have left to live, but anyway, I’m not not interested in living like that.”

Toscani also said he would like to be remembered “not for a single photo but for all of my work, my commitment.”

Toscani was the creative force behind the shock advertising campaigns of the 1980s and 1990s, which featured images such as the pope kissing an imam on the lips, which angered the Vatican.

Other images promoting United Colors of Benetton depicted a priest kissing a nun, a newborn with his umbilical cord, and a black woman breastfeeding a white baby, as part of the brand’s advocacy for diversity, religious tolerance and environmental messages.

During a 1997 shoot for a Benetton campaign featuring Jews and Arabs living peacefully together in Israel, Toscani told the Associated Press: “Every image is a political image, so we make our choice and we opt for reality.”

He added: “You may have to face criticism. Many people don’t like things that are different. Everyone likes to conform. We do not comply.

His decades-long relationship with Benetton was severed in 2020 after Toscani outraged relatives of victims of the deadly Genoa bridge collapse in 2018, telling RAI television: “Who cares about the collapse of a bridge? He was responding to outcry over a photograph of the founding members of a political protest movement alongside key members of the Benetton family, which controlled the company that maintained the bridge.

Toscani apologized in an interview with La Repubblica, saying: “I’m sorry. Plus: I’m ashamed to apologize. I am humanly destroyed and deeply saddened. But the damage was done and Benetton ended a relationship that had flourished from 1982 to 2000 and was rekindled in 2018.

Benetton remembered Toscani in a social media post: “Farewell, Oliviero. Keep dreaming,” beneath Toscani’s 1989 photo of a hand offering a bouquet of flowers.

Toscani was born in Milan on February 28, 1942, the son of a photojournalist for Corriere della Sera. He studied photography and graphics at the University of the Arts in Zurich from 1961 to 1965 and worked with the new Vogue Italia and other major fashion publications.

Over the years he has directed campaigns for brands such as Chanel, Robe di Kappa, Fiorucci and Esprit. But he was probably best known for his work for United Colors of Benetton, with images that carried messages promoting equality and diversity while denouncing anorexia, homophobia, the death penalty and racism.

His work for United Colors of Benetton, a brand then known for its colorful knitwear, raised his profile worldwide. In the early 1990s, he designed and directed “Colors”, a global publication distributed in Benetton stores, and created with Luciano Benetton the Fabrica research center in Treviso, Benetton’s hometown, which supports and launches many careers in the fashion industry.

Toscani tackled the AIDS crisis in the early 1990s with a colorful condom campaign, during which Benetton sold a range of colored condoms, and with a portrait of AIDS activist David Kirby surrounded by his family while he was dying.

In 2007, Toscani’s “No Anorexia” campaign for Italian fashion brand Nolita sparked further discussion about the disease and its relationship with the fashion industry. Toscani’s photograph with the skeletally thin model Isabelle Caro was revealed on giant billboards and in newspaper ads during Milan Fashion Week and received worldwide attention.

He has also been involved in projects addressing issues such as road safety, violence against women and stray dogs.

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Zampano reported from Rome.