His family announced his death in a press release on Monday.
Toscani revealed last year that he suffered from a rare disease, amyloidosis, which is characterized by a buildup of abnormal protein deposits in the body. He told “Corriere della Sera” last August that he had lost 40 kilograms in a year, adding: “I don’t know how long I have left to live, but I don’t want to live like that at all. way.”
Toscani said he would like to be remembered “not for a photo, but for all of his work, for the commitment.”
Oliviero Toscani was the creative force behind the shock advertising campaigns of the 1990s, which featured images such as the pope kissing an imam on the mouth, which angered the Vatican.
Other posters promoting Benetton depicted a priest kissing a nun, a newborn with his umbilical cord and a black woman breastfeeding a white baby, as part of the brand’s advocacy for diversity, tolerance religious and environmental messages.
-His decades-long relationship with Benetton broke down after Toscani outraged relatives of victims of the deadly Genoa bridge collapse in 2018, telling RAI television: “Who cares about a bridge collapsing? »
He was responding to controversy over a photo of the founding members of a political protest movement alongside key members of the Benetton family, which controlled the company that maintained the bridge.
Toscani apologized in an interview with “La Repubblica”. “I’m sorry. Even more: I’m ashamed to apologize. I am humanly destroyed and deeply saddened.”
But the damage was done; Benetton had completely severed its ties with him.
