Oliviero Toscani, photographer behind provocative Benetton ads, dies aged 83
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Tributes paid to Italian known for images that drew attention to social themes including HIV/Aids and racism. Tributes have been paid to Oliviero Toscani, the Italian fashion photographer renowned for the provocative images used in Benetton’s advertising campaigns, who has died aged 83.
![[Toscani points his camera at a group of children wearing colourful clothing]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8cfe13ecd909fee178192ef334cb355bcf5751b7/0_304_3900_2843/master/3900.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Toscani, who for two decades was the art director of the global clothing chain, died on Monday after being hospitalised close to his home in the Tuscan town of Cecina. The Milan-born photographer told Corriere della Sera newspaper in August last year that he had a terminal illness and did not know how long he had to live.
“With great sadness we announce that today, January 13, 2025, our beloved Oliviero has embarked on his next journey,” his family said in a statement on Instagram. “We kindly ask for discretion and understanding at this time.”. Toscani worked for prominent fashion magazines throughout his career including Elle, Vogue, GQ and Harper’s Bazaar, photographing John Lennon, Andy Warhol and the Italian film director Federico Fellini along the way.
But he was best known for images that drew attention to social themes, ranging from HIV/Aids and racism to the death penalty and mafia killings, in the United Colours of Benetton advertising campaigns, mostly in the 1980s. The most controversial was his use of a photograph of David Kirby, who had Aids, on his deathbed, surrounded by his family, for a 1992 Benetton campaign during the peak of the health crisis in the US.
