As a photographer, especially as one of the most famous in the world, Oliviero Toscani of course knew about the power of such images: an old man on crutches, badly shaved, slim, with hardly any hair left on his head, his pants around 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.
In this way, the Italian announced in August last year what only friends and family knew until then. In an interview in the ‘Corriere della Sera’, Toscani made it public that he was terminally ill with amyloidosis – a rare disease that leads to organ failure. Now Toscani, who sparked countless debates with his advertising campaigns for the fashion brand Benetton, has died. He was 82 years old.
“Shock photos” made Toscani famous around the world
For the Milan native, whose father himself had photographed for the ‘Corriere’, the photographs of the sick bed were, so to speak, the logical conclusion. With so-called shock photos, as they were called back then, Toscani shook up the entire industry in the 80s and 90s.
As a photographer and later creative director of the sweater company, he introduced the ‘United Colors of Benetton’ to the 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 were larger than life and hung in the pedestrian zones. Hardly anyone could get past Toscani back then.
Some considered him to be one of the best advocates for a life of diversity. Others saw him as a cynic. In any case, he was a man for the colorful.
From today’s perspective, one can ask why it caused such a scandal back then. 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 bloody newborn still attached to 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.
Advertising from Death Row was too much even for Benetton
“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, Toscani went overboard with the provocation, even for his employer. After he photographed prisoners sentenced to death in US prisons in almost holy poses for a new campaign, stores in the US removed the knitwear from their range. Benetton kicked him out.
Later they worked together again briefly, but then it was over. For several years now, the man, whose trademark was colorful glasses, had long since been considered rehabilitated. This also has to do with social changes: today, most of his photos would hardly be worth any major excitement. In recent years, Toscani has had several exhibitions in museums, including in Germany.
Formative years in New York
Until recently, a showcase of his life’s work was running at the Museum of Design in Zurich. Toscani did not stay long in Italy after school. The 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 great age of disco, the gay movement and black subculture. This reveals a lot.
Toscani spent the last few years back in his Italian homeland. In the summer of 2023, he was diagnosed with amyloidosis, which he himself explained as follows: “In practice, proteins are deposited 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 because of the medication.”
In addition, there was pneumonia and Covid 19 disease. “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 lived too much and too well.”
He leaves behind a wife and six children. (dpa)