Billy Name: The Silver Age: Black and White Photographs from Andy Warhol's Factory

by John Cale (Foreword), Glenn O'Brien (Introduction), Billy Name (Photographer)

This breathtaking tome is the definitive and comprehensive collection of Billy Name’s black-and-white photographs from Warhol’s Factory. Name’s photographs from this period (1964–68) are one of the most important photographic documents of any single artist in history. Name lived in a tiny closet at the Factory. He was responsible for the legendary “silverizing” of the space using aluminum paint and foil to complete the instillation. When Warhol gave Name a Pentax Honeywell 35mm camera, he took on the role of resident photographer and archivist. This visual essay, produced in collaboration with Billy name, offers an extensive trip through Warhol’s world. Name photographed the day-to-day happenings at The Factory with Andy, including visits from Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, Nico, Edie Sedgwick, Ivy Nicholson and Bob Dylan, and filming Screen Tests and features such as Chelsea Girls , Vinyl and My Hustler .

“Billy's book will go down in history as the best book about Warhol … [he] invented the term 'Factory Foto.' He was the first and he was the last Factory photographer. Period." –Gerard Malanga

444 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 2014

About the author

John Davies Cale, OBE (born 9 March 1942) is a musician, composer, singer, songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his five-decade career, Cale has worked in various styles, including rock, drone, classical, avant-garde and electronic music.

Reviews

[Kimmo Sinivuori · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most beautiful book of photographs I've seen/read. The quality of the print is top class and the layout is exquisite. John Cale and Glenn O'Brien have written insightful forewords and the short quotes from key personalties from the Silver Factory (referring to the original Warhol Factory which was located in Midtown Manhattan at 231 East 47th Street, close to the UN building from 1962 to 68) complement the pictures very nicely. It was Name himself who turned the Warhol Factory to Silver. He painted it silver from the floor to the ceiling and covered every object from pay phone to fire extinguisher in silver foil. Billy Name, or Billy Linich as he was called when he began with the project, was a wild decorator indeed, but this book is about his pictures. And what pictures! The Silver Factory was probably the first and last time in history when the rich and beautiful mixed with the demi-monde to such a stunning effect. There were more beautiful and talented people per square industrial meter never seen before or after in modern history providing Name with abundance of photogenic material everywhere he pointed his camera lens to. OK, there might have been times during the roaring twenties in New York, Paris or Weimar Berlin, that match the glamour of the Silver Factory but none have left such a rich archive of photographs as those by Name collected here or those by Stephen Shore and Nat Finkelstein published in other fine books. Shore's "Velvet Years; the Warhol's Factory 1965 to 67" is richer in eyewitness accounts (Reed, Tucker, Cale, Morrison, International Velvet etc.) but the photos, though very good, do not match these by Name in this absolute beauty of a book that should be on every self-respecting Warhol/Velvets fan's coffee table.

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Huge book of photos of the Andy Warhol circle from 1964-68. Minimal text by divers hands.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth it just for the pictures of Edie and Nico alone.