Who was Andy Warhol’s assistant known as Billy Name?

Billy Name was the professional name of Billy Linich, an assistant and photographer associated with Andy Warhol’s Factory.

Linich helped create the famous silver interior of the Silver Factory in 1964 by covering walls, ceilings, and objects with aluminum foil and silver paint. He also photographed people and activities at the studio, producing some of the best-known visual records of Warhol’s working environment.

Warhol gave Linich the name Billy Name, following the Factory’s culture of adopting distinctive artistic identities. Name’s photographs documented performers, visitors, musicians, and Warhol’s experimental projects during the studio’s most famous period.

Billy Name is sometimes confused with Gerard Malanga, another major Factory collaborator who worked as a poet, performer, and assistant. They were different people, although both played important roles in Warhol’s 1960s circle.