Warhol Factory: Name's Missing Negatives

Billy Name was the official photographer during the Warhol Factory years. He lived at the Factory and Warhol gave him the Pentax camera that he used. Callie Angell, the adjunct curator of the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Andy Warhol Film Project said, “His documentation of that era is really irreplaceable.”  Now these irreplaceable negatives are missing.

For years he has worked without a contract with an agent that took care of the business end of things for him. The agent had all the negatives and was supposed to be scanning them and converting them to a digital archive. But then he just stopped taking Billy's calls.

Mr Kushel, the agent, says

“I’m moving as fast as possible to rectify a situation in which I was basically sabotaged,” he said, declining to elaborate. Asked about the whereabouts of the negatives, he said only: “They are not missing. They’re just sort of being held captive.” When he was asked by whom they were being held, he added, “By people who want money.”

Warhol loved drama and this story has all the trappings of what Billy referred to as a "tacky tragedy." I hope it has a happy ending.

- Quotes from NYTimes article which has more info.

As an aside, "Warhol: The Last Decade" is opening at the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth on February 13 (member's only party). The exhibition was originally organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum and it is the first U.S. museum survey to explore the work from the last 8 years of his life. Show dates are February 14th - May 16th. I can't wait!

Photo Credit: Billy Name, Edie Sedgwick, 1965 - linked from artnet.com

Billy Name's official website

Lots of Name's images come up with a simple Google Image search