Oliviero Toscani died today, the first photo at 14 years old

Born in Milan on 28 February 1942, son of Dolores Cantoni and Fedele Toscani, one of the historic photojournalists of the ‘Corriere della Sera’, after studying at the Vittorio Veneto high school in Milan, in 1965 Oliviero Toscani graduated in photography at the University of the Arts in Zurichwhere he was a student of Serge Stauffer, a specialist in Marcel Duchamp and the artist Karl Schmid.

The first photo at 14 years old

In the meantime he had already published his first photo: at just 14 years old accompanying his father to Predappio for the burial of Benito Mussolini, while Fedele Toscani photographs the entire ceremony, the young Oliviero focuses on the sorrowful face of Rachele Mussolini and the portrait ends up in the ‘Corriere’.

One of his first photo shoots dates back to when he was 21 years old: Oliviero Toscani – who died today at the age of 82 – went up to Barbiana, in the Florentine Alto Mugello, with the journalist Giorgio Pecorini, his brother-in-law and friend of Don Lorenzo Milani. It was 1963 and he had been called up there to teach the prior’s boys to use the camera. On that occasion Toscani also took a burst of photos of Don Milani, which showed him in everyday life.

Toscani and the world of advertising

Toscani began working in the world of advertising almost immediately in the 1960s and his first campaign was for the Algida croissant. He then dedicated himself to fashion photography, to finally direct his research towards advertising communication. In 1972 he participated as a testimonial in the advertising carousels of the men’s clothing company Facis and with him appeared his brother-in-law Aldo Ballo, a photographer who had married his sister Marirosa Toscani, also a photographer, Sergio Libis and Alfa Castaldi. He therefore works for magazines such as “Elle”, “Vogue”, “GQ”, “Harper’s Bazaar”, “Esquire”, “Stern”, “Uomo Vogue” and “Donna” and takes photos for the campaigns of some fashion brands. fashion like Valentino, Chanel, Fiorucci, Esprit and Prénatal.

The great novelty of his approach to advertising photography is that of drawing heavily on the social problems of the moment and inserting them into the glossy pages of magazines. This new approach of his finds its culmination in the relationship with the Benetton company starting from the early 1980s. Toscani takes care of the shots and the concept of the advertising campaigns: themes such as racial equality, the mafia, the fight against homophobia, the fight against AIDS, the search for peace, the abolition of the death penalty are presented for the first time proposed on road signs and advertising pages.

Benetton and the slogan “All the colors of the world”

The first campaign signed by the photographer for Beneton began with the slogan “All the colors of the world”, in the name of integration, winning numerous awards and sparking controversy. And that slogan turns into the new name of the brand: United Colors of Benetton.

In 1991, under the aegis of Benetton, Toscani launched the magazine ‘Colors’, and in 1994 Fabrica, an international center for the arts and research into modern communication, whose headquarters was designed by the Japanese architect Tadao Andō. Fabrica has produced editorial projects, books, exhibitions and exhibitions. In this period he created a series of monographic catalogs inspired by an undoubted civil commitment: ‘Corleone’ (1997), portraits of young people in one of the historic centers of the mafia in Sicily; ‘I girasoli’ (1998), dedicated to the universe of disabled children; ‘We, on death row’ (2000), against the death penalty. In his cultural operations Toscani has tried to provide with industrial photography, or more precisely with photography contaminated by industry, not a simple representation of the object or company but images rich in social implications.

From 1999 to 2000 Toscani was creative director of the monthly ‘Talk Miramax’ in New York directed by Tina Brown. In 2000 he interrupted his collaboration with the Benetton group following a controversial campaign that used real photos of death row inmates in the United States and which provoked retaliatory actions against the fashion house. In the 2000s he worked on the campaigns of the RaRe brand, which had the theme of homophobia as a concept, and of the Nolita Pocket company, often running into conflicts with the Institute of Advertising Self-Discipline.

In his subsequent production, which stood out for the creation and use and manipulation of his own or others’ images, Toscani continues, with greater incisiveness, to combine research into advertising language with a highly ideological and often openly provocative discourse. Among the projects: collaboration with the Italian Red Cross, with the Istituto Superiore della Sanità, with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and some campaigns of interest and social commitment dedicated to road safety, anorexia, and violence against women. After decades of editorial innovation, advertising, film and television, he is interested in communication creativity applied to various media, producing editorial projects, books, television programs, exhibitions and workshops.

In 2004 Toscani created the modern communication research center La Sterpaia, located within the natural reserve of the San Rossore Park (Pisa), a laboratory where, following the workshop methodology, students are guided by tutors who are experts in the subject. Also in 2004 he coordinated the publication of ’30 ans de Libération’, a volume that retraces the last thirty years of history based on the articles of the French newspaper ‘Libération’ and edited the road safety campaign ‘Don’t kill’ in collaboration with the Police of State and Genertel. In 2006 he took on the artistic direction of Music Box, an interactive channel on the Sky platform: the music videos (chosen by the public at home via e-mail or text message) were ‘disturbed’ by ‘viral pills’ created by the group of creatives from La Sterpaia with the supervision of Toscani. On the same broadcaster Toscani hosts the talk show Camera Oscura.

In 2007 Toscani created a shocking campaign against anorexia for the Nolita brand, photographing the French model and actress Isabelle Caro, who weighed 31 kilos and was 1.64 meters tall. Due to the crudeness of the images, the campaign divides the public and critics, between those who consider it educational for young people and those who consider it an episode of advertising profiteering. Also in 2007, the Saatchi & Saatchi agency awarded Oliviero Toscani as Creative Hero, during the Clio Awards evening in Miami. 2007 is also the year in which Toscani inaugurates the ‘Human Race’ project, a photographic survey of the different human morphologies and conditions, to survey all the somatic, social and cultural expressions and characteristics of the human race, starting from more than 100 Italian municipalities, the State of Israel, Palestine and Guatemala.

From 2018 to 2020 Toscani worked again for Benetton, taking care of the company’s photographic campaigns and returning to the role of artistic director of Fabrica, launching in this context the Fabrica Circus project, which involves the creation of a hotbed of Renaissance artists where the Creation has no limits or labels. This season, Toscani relaunches with Benetton some of the themes dear to his work, such as that of integration, through a campaign photographed inside a school in the Giambellino district of Milan, depicting 28 children of thirteen different nationalities. Toscani will end his relationship with the company in July 2020, having been fired following his statements on the collapse of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa.

Oliviero Toscani has received numerous awards: the Grand Prix de la publicité (1990), The Management Medal of the Art Directors Club of New York (1994), the Golden Lion at the International Advertising Festival in Cannes (1996), the nominated as an honorary academic of the Academy of Fine Arts of Florence (2010), the honorary degree of the Academy of Fine Arts of Brescia (2017) the Art director’s lifetime achievement award German club (2019).