Oliviero Toscani, an Italian photographer who used images of an AIDS patient and death row inmates to break the boundaries of fashion imagery as the creative mastermind of Benetton’s advertising campaigns, died on Monday. He was 82.

His death was announced by his family on Instagram. They did not say where he died or cite a cause of death, but in August Mr. Toscani told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that he had been diagnosed with amyloidosis, a rare and incurable condition in which there is a buildup of protein.

His shock-and-awe campaigns in the 1980s and ’90s helped turn Benetton from a small Italian brand into a global fashion powerhouse, with provocative advertisements that blurred the lines between marketing and activism, high art and consumer industry.

In one ad, an AIDS patient lay on his back, his mouth open, his hands curled on his chest. His dark eyes stared past his family, who had gathered around his deathbed. The patient, David Kirby, looked almost Christ-like.

And there, near the bottom right, a few words hung in a green box: “United Colors of Benetton.”

The advertisement, which ran in the 1990s, was one of the most provocative and divisive in recent fashion history, prompting furious debates over whether Benetton, and Mr. Toscani, were creating art, engaging in advocacy or exploiting the epidemic to sell its clothes.

Notably, Mr. Toscani had the Kirby family’s permission to use a colorized version of the image, which was shot in 1990 by the photographer Therese Frare. The Kirbys said the campaign had helped broaden awareness about AIDS.