Oliviero Toscani, the Italian photographer who was the creative mastermind behind Benetton's advertising campaigns and who shattered the boundaries of fashion imagery with images of AIDS patients and death row inmates, died on Monday. He was 82 years old.
His death was announced by his family on Instagram. Although he did not say where he died or the cause of his death, Toscani told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera in August that he had been diagnosed with amyloidosis, a rare and incurable disease that causes protein buildup.
His shock-and-awe campaigns in the 1980s and '90s, with provocative advertising that blurred the lines between marketing and activism, high art and consumer industry, turned Benetton into a small Italian company. It helped transform it from a brand to a global fashion powerhouse.
One ad showed an AIDS patient lying on his back, mouth open and hands curled over his chest. His dark eyes stared beyond the family gathered around his deathbed. The patient, David Kirby, was almost Christ-like.
And near the bottom right, hanging in a green box were the words “United Colors of Benetton.”
This ad, which ran in the 1990s, is one of the most provocative and divisive in recent fashion history, and questions whether Benetton and Mr. Toscani are creating art or engaging in advocacy. This has sparked a heated debate over whether the pandemic is being exploited to sell clothes.
Notably, Toscani, with the Kirby family's permission, used a colorized version of the image taken by photographer Thérèse Frare in 1990. The Carbiss said the campaign helped spread awareness about AIDS.
“Benetton never took advantage of us or exploited us,” the Kirby family said, adding that this is how their son's portrait “will be seen around the world, and that's what David wanted.” ' he claimed.
Mr. Toscani's ads were often socially progressive, featuring images of racially diverse and gay families. They were also intended to shock. He used photographs of horses mating. He used military uniforms with blood stains from soldiers killed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. One ad featured actors dressed as a priest and a nun kissing.
“Advertising agencies make millions by doing the same old thing over and over again,” he told The New York Times in 1995, adding, “We're going down a different path.”
Mr. Toscani sometimes crossed the line for Benetton. He joined the company in 1982 but left in 2000 amid controversy over an ad campaign that featured photos of death row inmates across the United States.
He returned as creative director in 2017. But his career at Benetton came to an end in 2020, not because he took calculated and bold risks in photography and advertising, but because he delighted in a total challenge to conventional notions of social status. It wasn't because I was there. Rather, it was a casual comment he made in a radio interview about the Italian bridge collapse that killed more than 40 people. “Who cares if the bridge collapses?'' he said. He apologized, but Benetton fired him.
Italian politicians and creative leaders paid tribute to him on social media on Monday. Valentino's creator, designer Valentino Garavani, described him as “a visionary who challenged the world through his lens.'' Designer Giorgio Armani wrote that “the immediacy of his language and visual impact set the standard.”
Oliviero Toscani was born on February 28, 1942 in Milan. He followed in the footsteps of his father Fedele Toscani, a photojournalist. Mr. Toscani trained at the Zurich School of Applied Arts and worked as a fashion designer before joining Benetton Group in 1982 as an art director.
His survivors include his wife, Kirsti Mosen Toscani, and their three children, Rocco, Laura, and Ali. Mr. Toscani was previously married twice and had three other children. Complete information about survivors was not immediately available.
In his final months, Toscani told the Corriere della Sera newspaper that while being treated for amyloidosis, he lost weight and lost his sense of taste. The wine tasted different to him, he said. “I'm not interested in this kind of life,” he added.
But in September he visited the Zurich National Museum for a major retrospective of his work called “Oliviero Toscani: Photography and Provocation.'' It closed about a week before he passed away.
“I learned that advertising is the richest and most powerful medium that exists today,” he told the Times in 1991. “So I feel like I have a responsibility to do more than just say, 'Our sweater is cute.'”
Elisabetta Povoledo and Matthew Mpoke Bigg contributed reporting.
