Oliviero Toscani, famous photographer, died at 82: why was he so controversial?

The world of photography is losing a legend. Oliviero Toscani has died at age 82, his family announced.

Oliviero Toscani, the photographer made famous by his shocking advertising campaigns for the Italian clothing brand Benetton, died Monday at the age of 82 following a long illness, his family announced.

The photographer revealed in August 2024 that he suffered from amyloidosis, a rare and incurable disease which creates insoluble protein deposits in the tissues, explaining that he had lost 40 kilos in one year.

“I’m not afraid of dying. As long as it’s not painful“, he then assured in an interview with the major Milanese daily Il Corriere della Sera.

“It is with immense sadness that we announce that today, January 13, 2025, our beloved Oliviero has embarked on his next journey” his family wrote on Instagram.

An outstanding provocateur

Born on February 28, 1942 in the Lombard capital, Oliviero Toscani had built his career on scandal and provocation with campaigns for the clothes of the Italian clothing group Benetton from 1983.

These campaigns, which toured the world, notably featured a black woman breast-feeding a white child (1989), a man dying of AIDS and a nun with a cornet kissing a young priest (1992), people sentenced to death in the United States (2000), a young anorexic woman (2007).

“I hate artistic photography“, he said in 2010. “Photography becomes art when it provokes a reaction in us, whether it is interest, curiosity or attention.”

Several of its “United Colors of Benetton” campaigns were banned in Italy, but also in France.

Reviving the original provocation, the group shocked again at the end of 2011 with photomontages showing the greats of this world kissing each other on the lips, including the Pope and an imam.

A 2012 calendar presented by Toscani in Florence represented 12 penises, after that of 2011 which was composed of the same number of female pubes.

Asked by Il Corriere to know which photo he would choose if he had to choose only one, he replied: “For the whole, for the commitment. It’s not a photo that makes history, it’s an ethical, aesthetic and political choice“.

Oliviero Toscani