Keystone
The Italian Oliviero Toscani made a name for himself worldwide with “shock advertising” for a fashion brand. His photos caused a scandal on more than one occasion. Now the star photographer has died at the age of 82 after a serious illness.
As a photographer, especially as one of the most famous in the world, Oliviero Toscani was naturally aware of the power of such images: an old man on crutches, badly shaved, thin, hardly any hair left on his head, his trousers at the back of his knees, his T-shirt two sizes too big. You could see it at first glance: The man in the photo is anything but healthy. It was Toscani himself.
Terminally ill
In August last year, the Italian revealed what until then only friends and family had known. In an interview in “Corriere della Sera”, Toscani made it public that he was terminally ill with amyloidosis – a rare disease that leads to organ failure. Toscani has now died. He was 82 years old. He sparked countless debates with his advertising campaigns for the fashion brand Benetton.
For the Milan-born photographer, whose father had himself taken photographs for the “Corriere”, the pictures of the sickbed were, in a way, the logical conclusion. Toscani had shaken up the entire industry in the 80s and 90s with so-called shock photos, as they were called at the time.
As photographer and later creative director of the sweater company, he elevated the “United Colors of Benetton” to a program. The pictures of people of all skin colors, of couples of all genders, could be found in magazines almost everywhere in the world. The posters hung larger than life in the pedestrian zones. Hardly anyone could avoid Toscani back then.
Provocateur
Some considered him to be one of the best advocates of a life of diversity. Others saw him as a cynic. In any case, he knew how to provoke.
From today’s perspective, one might wonder why so much fuss was made at the time. But Toscani won the battle for attention almost every time with his advertising motifs. With the priest and the nun, united in a kiss. With the bloodied newborn baby still on the umbilical cord. With the AIDS patient on his deathbed. With condoms in all possible colors. With the uniform trousers and the blood-soaked T-shirt of the dead Bosnian soldier.
“Anyone can look at a picture,” he said. “But some people can’t bear the emotions it triggers.” Shortly after the turn of the millennium, however, Toscani overdid it with the provocation, even for his employer. After he photographed prisoners sentenced to death in US prisons in an almost saintly pose for a new campaign, stores in the USA removed the knitwear from their ranges. Benetton kicked him out.
Toscani and Benetton later worked together again briefly, but then it was over. For some years now, the man whose trademark was colorful glasses has been considered rehabilitated. This also has to do with social changes: Today, most of his photos would hardly be worthy of greater excitement. Toscani has already had several exhibitions in museums in recent years.
Retrospective in Zurich
A major retrospective has just ended at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich. The exhibition “Oliviero Toscani: Photography and Provocation” was extended until January 5 – “due to its great success”, as the museum wrote. On display were photographs from Toscani’s entire oeuvre.
Toscani did not stay in Italy for long after school. His first prize for a black-and-white study of Zurich airport brought him to New York in the mid-1960s, where he moved in the circle of pop artist Andy Warhol (1928-1987). It was the heyday of disco, the gay movement and black subculture. This reveals a lot.
Toscani spent the last few years back in his native Italy. In the summer of 2023, he was diagnosed with amyloidosis, which he explained as follows: “In practice, proteins accumulate at certain vital points and block the body. And you die. There is no cure.”
Within a few months, he lost 40 kilograms. “I can’t even drink wine anymore,” he complained. “My sense of taste has changed due to the medication.”
This was compounded by pneumonia and Covid-19. “I think I was dead for a few minutes too. I remember an abstract something with somewhat psychedelic colors.” His answer to the question about dying: “No, I’m not afraid. As long as it doesn’t hurt. Besides, I’ve lived too much and too well.” He leaves behind a wife and six children.
