Tributes have been pouring in for photographer Oliviero Toscani, the Italian fashion photographer renowned for his long-lasting and provocative collaboration with clothing brand Benetton, who died on Monday aged 82.
Toscani, who served as the art director of the global fashion brand for two decades, had amyloidosis, a disease characterized by a build up of abnormal protein deposits in the body. He told Corriere della Sera newspaper in August last year “I don’t know how long I have to live, but I’m not interested in living this way.”
“With great sadness we announce that today, January 13, 2025, our beloved Oliviero has embarked on his next journey,” his family wrote in a statement posted to Instagram. “We kindly ask for discretion and understanding at this time.”
Speaking to Corriere della Sera, Toscani in 2024 he added he would like to be remembered “not for any one photo but for my whole work, for the commitment.”
Toscani was best known for images that drew attention to social issues, such as anorexia, HIV, AIDS and racism, mafia murders and the death penalty. He wove these themes into the United Colors of Benetton advertising campaigns throughout the 1980s and the 1990s.
In an interview with Professional Photography magazine in 2006 Toscani said the fashion industry had become “a marketing world now. It’s just about products. It has no sociopolitical meaning…Women are much more intelligent than these magazines.
“If a young girl looks at a magazine and thinks, ‘I’ll never be like that,’ she will suffer complexes. The fashion world discriminates a lot. It’s really sad that magazines promote anorexia, discrimination, complexes and isolation to the women looking at the pictures in the magazines.”
His influential photographs included a black woman breastfeeding a white child, a kiss between a priest and a nun, and his most controversial campaign in 1992 used an image of activist David Kirby, who had AIDS, on his deathbed surrounded by his family during the peak of the crisis.
The campaign angered Roman Catholics and AIDS activists alike, with powerhouse fashion magazines including Vogue and Elle refusing to run it.
However, Kirby’s mother, Kay, told Life.com at the time:
“We never had any reservations about allowing Benetton to use Therese’s photograph in that ad. What I objected to was everybody who put their two cents in about how outrageous they thought it was, when nobody knew anything about us, or about David.
"My son more or less starved to death at the end. We just felt it was time that people saw the truth about AIDS, and if Benetton could help in that effort, fine. That ad was the last chance for people to see David as a marker, to show that he was once here, among us.”
Speaking with Professional Photography magazine Toscani admitted his biggest failure was “listening to people who said ‘Oliviero, isn’t that too much?’ You should never listen to those people, to that sort of mediocrity. Too much of what? It’s like Emperor Joseph II telling Mozart there were too many notes.”
When asked how he would like to be remembered he said:
“I don’t care. I won’t remember when I’m dead, so who cares? I belong to a generation that was really lucky. I’ve been through some interesting times. I consider myself to be the most privileged and lucky person I’ve ever met in my life. I’m not embarrassed to say that. Some people struggle to survive physically and mentally, whereas I’ve got a huge, healthy family. I’m 73 and healthy; everything works. We should look around and not complain too much.
“I’m also lucky because I’m not lazy. Nowadays, there’s an inertia, brought about by all the technology. People get carried away with technology, and they no longer choose to take the time to imagine. Imagination has nothing to do with technology. It’s the imagination that goes into the image. People use technology and Photoshop to fill in what they’re lacking in talent. People are incredibly lazy and spoilt. Few people make an effort. I get a lot of young people coming up to me, wanting to show me their portfolios. So I tell them, ‘Okay, fine.”
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