Provocative Fashion Photographer Oliviero Toscani Dies at 82

Italian fashion photographer Oliviero Toscani, best known for his provocative advertising campaigns for the Benetton clothing brand, has died at age 82.

Last year, Toscani, Benetton’s former art director, revealed that he had amyloidosis, a rare disease that causes abnormal amyloid deposits throughout the body, including in the brain, heart, kidneys, and other vital organs. Toscani was admitted to a hospital in Tuscany late last week in serious condition. In an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera last August, the photographer said he had lost nearly 90 pounds in a year, remarking, “I don’t know how long I have left to live, but I’m not interested in living like this anyway.”

His death was confirmed this morning via a post the photographer’s wife, Kirsti Toscani, made on Instagram.

“It is with great sorrow that we give the news that today, January 13, 2025, our beloved Oliviero has embarked on his next journey,” Kirsti Toscani writes in Italian.

Throughout his lengthy, prolific career, Toscani directed many Benetton campaigns, including some especially controversial ones in the 1980s and 1990s. Especially shocking work showed a nun and a priest kissing, blood-drenched clothes from dead soldiers, prisoners on death row, and perhaps most famously, David Kirby dying of AIDS. The death row campaign led to Toscani leaving Benetton in 2000 before returning to the brand for a short stint nearly two decades later.

The photographer also earned notoriety for a campaign aimed at exposing deadly eating disorders in the fashion industry. The 2007 photo of French model Isabelle Caro ran on billboards during that year’s Milan fashion week. Caro died two years later at age 28 from anorexia nervosa.

Toscani’s arresting image of Caro was one of many censored throughout his career, a testament to the photographer’s commitment to shedding light on social issues through shocking artwork.

“I exploit clothing to raise social issues,” Toscani told Reuters in an interview in 2000 following his death row image controversy.

“In order to explain certain things, words simply don’t suffice. You taught us that,” a Benetton spokesperson said of Toscani’s passing.

Last year, Toscani hoped he would be remembered “not for any one photo but for my whole work, for the commitment.”

Image credits: Featured image shared via the Toscani family