Oliviero Toscani has died, he transformed provocation into art. Benetton’s farewell: “Keep dreaming” – News

Oliviero Toscani has died: the family announced it in a short press release. “With immense pain we give the news that today, 13 January 2025, our beloved Oliviero has undertaken his next journey. We kindly ask for confidentiality and understanding for this moment which we would like to face in the intimacy of the family. Kirsti Toscani with Rocco, Lola and Ali “, reads the note signed by his wife Kirsti and children. There will be no funeral home.

The body of Oliviero Toscani, who died around 3 this morning in Cecina hospital (Livorno), should remain in the mortuary of the hospital until tomorrow when he should be cremated in Livorno at the Lupi cemetery. As already said by Michele Emdin, the photographer’s cardiologist, there will be no funeral home. For decades the Milanese photographer had lived with his family on an estate in Casale Marittimo, a village between the provinces of Pisa and Livorno in Val di Cecina, from where last Friday he was taken to the Cecina hospital due to the worsening of his health conditions. Health.

Toscani died at the age of 82 in Cecina hospital, where he had been admitted on 10 January due to worsening conditions. For two years – as he revealed in a shocking interview with Corriere della Sera last August 28 – he had been suffering from amyloidosis: “In a year I lost 40 kilos. I can’t even drink wine anymore: the flavor is altered by the medicines”, he said, explaining that he was undergoing an experimental treatment and that he did not fear death.

“As long as it doesn’t hurt. And then I’ve lived too much and too well, I’m very spoiled. I’ve never had a boss, a salary, I’ve always been free.” He had also spoken of his intention to turn to his “friend Cappato” to choose assisted suicide in Switzerland. In the meantime, he had gone to Zurich at the end of September to visit his exhibition Photography and Provocation at the Museum für Gestaltung, in one of the last public appearances.

The photographer of light, colour, creativity, always outside the box, who even in his illness followed his path of denunciation, until the end Toscani carried forward the strength of ideas, that of a man who revolutionized the world of photography, scandalizing and sparking debate.

From the jeans of ‘Who loves me follow me’ to the kiss between a priest and a nun, from the faces of those condemned to death to the body of a woman consumed by anorexia, all his campaigns have left their mark. In his sixty-year career he has worked everywhere in the world and for all the most important magazines. Thousands of portraits, millions of images. Yet he didn’t want to be remembered for anyone in particular, but “for the whole, for the commitment.

It is not an image that makes history for you, it is an ethical, aesthetic, political choice to make with your work”. A journey condensed in the book I have done all the colours, released in 2022 by La Nave di Teseo, and centered on the world he would have wanted and had imagined since the days of Fabrica with Benetton and Colors, the magazine that anticipated the commitment to many current issues today, from the environment to migrants to racism.

In his notebook from John Lennon to Andy Warhol, from Muhammad Ali to Lou Reed, up to the desire to immortalize Jannik Sinner. For fashion from Donna Jordan to Claudia Schiffer, up to Monica Bellucci, but also Carmelo Bene and Federico Fellini. Born in Milan on 28 February 1942, Toscani published his first shot in Corriere at the age of 14: it was the face of Rachele Mussolini, immortalized in Predappio at the burial of the Duce in the family tomb.

After graduating in photography at the Zurich University of the Arts, he made his debut in the world of advertising with the campaign for the Algida croissant. His shots end up in Elle, Vogue, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, but he also takes photos for famous fashion houses such as Valentino, Chanel, Fiorucci, Esprit and Prénatal. The turning point, in 1982, with Benetton: the sweaters are the pretext for Toscani to bring social issues to the foreground such as equality, the mafia, the fight against homophobia, the fight against AIDS or the death penalty.

In 1991 he launched the magazine Colors, three years later here was Fabrica, an international center for the arts and research of modern communication, whose headquarters was designed by the Japanese star architect Tadao Ando. In 2000 the partnership with the Benetton group ended, following a controversial campaign that used real photos of death row inmates in the United States.

There will be fashion campaigns for the RaRe brand, focused on homophobia, collaborations with the Red Cross, with the Istituto Superiore della Sanità, with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and those of social commitment on security, violence against women, anorexia. Precisely on this theme in 2007 Toscani created a shocking campaign for the Nolita brand, which divided the public and critics, putting the French model and actress Isabelle Caro, 31 kilos and 1.64 meters tall, at the centre.

In 2007 he created the Razza Umana project, a gallery of portraits of various humanity, a sort of census of all the somatic and social characteristics of the human race. From 2018 to 2020 he returned to Benetton, relaunching the themes of integration, but was then fired for his statements on the collapse of the Morandi bridge (“But who cares about a bridge falling?”).

Multiple awards – from the Grand Prix de la publicité (1990) to the Golden Lion at the International Advertising Festival in Cannes (1996), from the nomination as an honorary academic of the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence (2010) to the Lifetime Achievement Award of German art director’s club (2019), honorary president of Nobody Tocchi Caino, Toscani was a candidate for the Chamber with the Radicals in 1996 for the Marco Pannella List and in 2006 for the Rose in the Fist.

He caused a sensation with his comment on the death of the Cavaliere (“fortunately Berlusconi is dead”) and never hid his critical positions towards the Meloni government, reiterated in one of his last TV interviews, in September on Piazzapulita, the program by Corrado Formigli on La7. His secret? “I look for new faces, people with enthusiasm in their eyes, I expect them to not have make-up, beauty is something else”, he said on the occasion of his 80th birthday. And the future? “Who knows, I think of the cosmos, the universe, the stars. When we understand all this, well, it will be the future.”

Benetton: ‘Goodbye Oliviero, keep dreaming’

‘To explain certain things, words are simply not enough. You taught us that. So we prefer to greet you with an image that you took for us many years ago, in 1989. Goodbye Oliviero. Keep dreaming’, the Benetton Group writes on its social channels.

Toscani dies, Giani: ‘his imprint on art is indelible’

“Goodbye to Oliviero Toscani, master of photography and free spirit, who left an indelible mark on communication and art. Tuscany, which he had chosen as his home, loses a dear friend and a tireless innovator. His creative genius will continue to inspire us. Goodbye, Oliviero”. The governor of Tuscany Eugenio Giani wrote it on Facebook.

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