Billy Name, American photographer, Died at 76

  Artists

William Linich, Jr. was born on February 22, 1940, in Poughkeepsie, New York, and died on July 18, 2016.

His professionally name was Billy Name.

He was an American photographer, filmmaker, and lighting designer.

Billy was the archivist of the Warhol Factory, from 1964 to 1970.

Name’s short romance and subsequent friendship with Andy Warhol led to substantial collaboration on Warhol’s work, including his films, paintings, and sculptures.

William Linich became Billy Name among the coterie known as the Warhol Superstars.

Billy was in charge of the “silverizing” Warhol’s New York studio, the Factory, where he lived until 1970.

Name’s photographs of the scene at the Warhol Factory and of Warhol himself are important documents of the Pop art era.

The United States Postal Service used one of Billy Name’s portraits of Warhol when it issued a commemorative stamp of the artist, in 2001.

He had collaborated with Shepard Fairey with his photograph of Nico, singer with the Velvet Underground and part of the social circle of Warhol’s Factory.

Billy Name photographed the covers for the Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat and their eponymous third album as well as the photographs in the gatefold sleeve for The Velvet Underground and Nico (in collaboration with fellow Warhol associate Nat Finkelstein).

Billy Name passed away at 76 years old.