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Photographer Oliviero Toscani famed for controversial Benetton ads
The Straits Times
|January 15, 2025
Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani, best known for his work on Benetton's provocative advertising campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s, including one featuring an Aids sufferer, died on Jan 13 aged 82.
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Toscani, who spent two decades as art director for the fashion retailer, revealed in August 2024 that he suffered from amyloidosis, an incurable disease, and had lost 40kg.
Asking for privacy, his family said in a statement on Instagram: "With great sadness we announce that today, Jan 13, 2025, our beloved Oliviero has embarked on his next journey."
Toscani was known for using viscerally shocking images to not only sell products, but also draw attention to social themes, such as Aids, racism and the death penalty.
Most controversial was his use of a photograph of Aids sufferer David Kirby on his deathbed surrounded by his family for a 1992 Benetton campaign during the peak of the health crisis in the United States.
The campaign sparked a backlash by Aids activists and a boycott of Benetton, but Toscani stood by his work.
This story is from the January 15, 2025 edition of The Straits Times.
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