Remembering Oliviero Toscani, fashion photographer and author of provocative Benetton campaigns

Oliviero Toscani, the photographer behind transgressive Benetton campaigns that drew attention to social issues such as Aids and racism during the 1980s and 1990s, died on Monday at the Cecina hospital in Tuscany. His wife, Kirsti, took to Instagram to announce her husband’s passing, writing: ‘It is with great sorrow that we announce the news that today, 13 January 2025, our beloved Oliviero has embarked on his next journey.’

Last year, the Milan-born photographer told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that he had amyloidosis, a rare condition that affects the body's vital organs and nerves.

During his career, Toscani worked for major magazines, photographing the likes of Andy Warhol, John Lennon and Federico Fellini, and is credited with helping launch the career of Monica Bellucci. But it was his tenure at Benetton, where he served as art director from 1982-2000, that propelled him to global notoriety.

Toscani’s use of models of different races and ethnicities – embodied in the moniker United Colours of Benetton – became the brand’s calling card. These campaigns blazed a trail for diversity, but the social themes of his work didn’t stop there. The adverts that Toscani produced for Benetton were often explicit and shocking, forcing conversations about war, the death penalty and homosexuality.

One featured a graphic photograph of three hearts labelled ‘black’, ‘white’ and ‘yellow’, alluding to the issue of racism in fashion. Another campaign, run at the height of the Aids crisis, pictured David Kirby, a man dying of the disease, which was boycotted by The Sunday Times and which magazines such as Elle, Vogue and Marie Claire refused to run. Another of Toscani’s adverts, featuring a priest and a nun kissing, was banned, while an image of a still-bloody newborn is said to be Benetton's most-censored

Also featured on Benetton billboards during Toscani’s art directorship: the blood-drenched clothes of a soldier killed in Bosnia, a Black woman breastfeeding a white child, and a black horse mounting a white one. His work was praised and reviled in equal measure, but never failed to push the needle.

After 18 years, Toscani parted ways with Benetton following a dispute over a campaign showing images of death row prisoners, captioned ‘sentenced to death’. In his newly independent capacity, he continued to stoke controversy. In 2007, he photographed an anti-anorexia campaign featuring French model Isabelle Caro, who sadly died of the disease three years later, for Italian label Nolita. The campaign, which ran during Milan Fashion Week, went viral online.

In a 2016 interview, Toscani argued that companies have a responsibility to 'show [their] social intelligence and sensitivity to the society'. The concept of using social and political messaging in campaigns – radical at the time – has now become the cornerstone of many marketing strategies. Toscani, therefore, can and should be considered a true trailblazer.

This is reflected in the tributes of public figures and tastemakers in art and fashion: on Monday (13 January), Benetton released a statement saying, 'In order to explain certain things, words simply don’t suffice. You taught us that'. Giuseppe Sala, the mayor of Milan, said Toscani had left 'an indelible mark' on photography, while Italian parliamentarians paid tribute to a 'visionary and courageous talent'. British photographer Rankin, meanwhile, called Toscani 'a rockstar in the world of photography' with ideas that were like 'cultural grenades'.